For many decades, the club was host of the annual Professional Baseball Player-Babe Ruth Cancer Fund golf tournament with stars such as Ty Cobb, Bing Crosby, Lefty O'Doul, Leo Durocher and many others.
The Union League Golf and Country Club of San Francisco was constructed in 1929 (opening in 1930) in Millbrae, California, United States.
Flowers and shrubs grown on the property were actually utilized by famed horticulturist John MacLaren in the 1915 Pan Pacific Exposition, or World's Fair.
The property could be reached from San Francisco by the members’ automobiles traveling down a road that led to the Peninsula, the El Camino Real.
After the land was secured the Union League selected a design team that could build a world-class golf course, and a modern clubhouse.
His architectural firm, however carried on in his tradition and developed the plans for the Union League Golf and Country Club structure.
MacKenzie, with help from Hunter and Egan, utilized the existing topography and with minimal grading sculpted an 18-hole layout that would soon draw rave reviews as a world-class golf course.
In 1929, when MacKenzie was shaping the land into what is now Green Hills he said “When the Millbrae course is completed it will rank with the first three in the San Francisco district and will be one of the sportiest in the entire state.
The natural topography has made it easy for us to plot the course, and with plenty of water for the tees and fairways, the new club will be one of the finest of its kind on the coast”.
The San Francisco press covered the April 27, 1930, opening day events and gave glowing reviews to the golf course, calling it "happy valley" and "the equal of anything in Northern California."
Groundbreaking of The Union League Golf and Country Club took place on January 6, 1929, ten months prior to the crash of the Stock Market.
Although the course was ready for play in January 1930, the members voted to delay opening until "all possibility of damage to the greens by premature use" had been eliminated.
A picture of the sign, with the 16 Mile House (at its original location) in the background, was included in the Sunday August 10, 1930, issue of the San Francisco Chronicle.
The San Mateo Times reported that "Over three hundred members and their friends gathered in the new building which is one of the finest country clubs in California, and enjoyed the delightful entertainment prepared by the inauguration committee.
Bevan, Burlingame resident and vice-president of the Wells Fargo Bank of San Francisco is president of the club and has directed the details of construction which brings to the Peninsula a new golf course and clubhouse that is a real asset to the community.
Robert Hunter was a good golfer and a socialite with "connections" that helped bring attention to various MacKenzie course design projects.
These visits prompted Bobby Jones to select Mackenzie for the design of Augusta National in place of Donald Ross and a tradition was born.
During the period around World War II many of the original MacKenzie bunkers were filled in (a cost-cutting measure that occurred in golf courses throughout America) and sodded over.