First Female GM at The Country Club Poised to Host U.S. Open

Kristen LaCount is the first female General Manager in the 140-year history of The Country Club in Brookline, Mass. The club, which is the oldest country club in the country, is preparing to host the 122nd U.S. Open. “This is the big leagues,” says LaCount. “We’re opening the gates to the world. You want to make sure that we’re putting our best foot forward.” After growing up working at the club, LaCount started as an assistant manager right after college in 2003 and worked her way up to Assistant General Manager. She became General Manager in October 2020.

When she was growing up in Norwood, Mass., Kristen LaCount wanted to be a cook, like her father, The Boston Globe reported. She got her first set of knives from Santa when she was 16 and soon began entering cooking competitions. For college, she chose Johnson & Wales and seemed well on her way to a culinary career.

Instead, with the 122nd U.S. Open bearing down on Boston, LaCount is the general manager and chief operating officer of The Country Club, which is hosting the championship, The Boston Globe reported. It is the oldest country club in the country, founded in 1882, and one of the most revered. She is the first female GM in the club’s 140-year history.

The Country Club, one of five founding members of the United States Golf Association, is traditional and exclusive, The Boston Globe reported. Women were not admitted as full members until 1989, but dual-career households are now common and the club puts an emphasis on families. Gendered spaces no longer exist: no men’s grille, no limiting women to morning rounds of golf.

Are women treated equally at TCC?
“With a woman as the general manager?” LaCount laughs and raises an eyebrow when speaking with The Globe. “I think it speaks volumes that [women] stand on their own as members. The way that we welcome them is that every family who’s here is part of the club community; it’s a family environment.”

LaCount spent her childhood at the club, helping the executive chef — her father — in the kitchen during busy times, rolling chocolate truffles and making gingerbread houses for the clubhouse at Christmas, The Globe reported. By the time she was a teenager, she was working at the pool’s snack bar, making burgers and frappes.

LaCount’s parents met while working there. So too did LaCount and her husband, Dan Kerrigan, the club’s former maitre d’ who now owns restaurants in Brookline and Milton, The Globe reported. Except for scattered restaurant gigs while she was in college, it’s the only place LaCount has ever worked.

“It’s not common to see someone stay in one place such a long time, but what made it easy was every year was so different,” said LaCount, who began as an assistant manager right out of college in 2003 and methodically worked her way through positions of increasing responsibility until she was the assistant GM.

She began to play golf more seriously in her 20s to build her appreciation for the game and so she could, as she put it, “hang” when she played with club or business colleagues. Now she encourages her employees to do the same, The Globe reported.

“A big lightbulb went off for me in 2013 when we had a national championship here [the U.S. Amateur],” said LaCount. “Experiencing that and what it it did for the club and the staff and me personally, that’s when I realized I wanted to be manager of a club that put on major championships.”

During the 2013 U.S. Amateur, The Country Club got the nod to be host of the 2022 U.S. Open.
“I get chills just thinking about it,” said LaCount to The Globe.

Two years ago, when longtime GM and LaCount’s mentor David Chag decided it was time to step down, LaCount knew she wanted to step up, The Globe reported.

“We decided based on how long she had worked at the club [17 years] we would give her first crack at an interview for the job,” said club president Lyman Bullard. “She came in and was incredible and full of new ideas. She was the best person for the job. We weren’t trying to make history but we did.”

LaCount took charge in October of 2020, in the midst of the pandemic, with a major international event just more than a year away.

“She came into an environment that’s been historically male-dominated,” Chag said. “She’s a tenacious character. You aren’t going to roll over decisions [on her] without being questioned. She’s diplomatic but she stands on her own.

“She’s an incredible leader. I marvel at the fact that she can do this and raise a family.”
LaCount has a daughter and a son and lives with her family in a cottage in the middle of the golf course — which is great when you want to play a few holes on a warm July evening, but demanding because it leaves you on duty at every moment, The Globe reported.

On June 16, some 156 golfers from around the world will converge on Brookline, and tens of thousands of spectators will follow them, The Globe reported.

“This is the big leagues,” said LaCount. “We’re opening the gates to the world. You want to make sure that we’re putting our best foot forward.”