In the 1990s, Mr. Donald Panoz after meeting and be friending Gene Sarazen, got the opportunity to play Augusta National. Shortly after playing Augusta, Mr. Panoz decided he wanted to build his own private golf course and call it The Legends Golf Club. Mr. Panoz grew up in Ohio but spent most of his young adult life in West Virginia where Sam Snead called home.
When Mr. Panoz started planning his vision for his small private golf club, he envisioned Gene Sarazen and Sam Snead as the architects behind the club. Mr. Panoz also brought in golf course architect Dennis Griffith to be the course architect. During the planning phase, Mrs. Panoz shared her love of Kathy Whitworth and wanted her to be involved in the project. With the inclusion of Mrs. Whitworth, three Legends of the game of golf were now involved in the vision of the Legends Golf Club.
As a matter of fact, in the years 1991-1993, Sarazen would hit his opening tee shot at the Masters and would come directly to the Legends within hours of the events. He wanted to ride all 18 holes of “his self-proclaimed golf course,” as he would often jokingly claim. One of the ways Don honored Gene for his involvement was by creating an S-Shaped bunker on the left side of#3 green.
After the completion of the club in 1993, Mr. Panoz immortalized Gene Sarazen, Sam Snead, and Kathy Whitworth with the club by having statues of each of them built in front of the clubhouse. In 1994, Mr. Panoz, Gene Sarazen and several different companies joined to start a golf tournament called the Sarazen World Open. This tournament was to be exclusively played at the Legends Golf Club. The tournament ran for a successful five years and hosted winners such as Ernie Els, Frank Nobilo, Mark Calcavecchia, and Dudley Hart