Craig, you are correct. I don't believe Western opened as Brightmoor. The course opened with a name to do with district... I forget exactly. Nobody then or now would use Brightmoor if trying to recruit Detroit area members. It must have been some sort of operating name at first. The odd thing about that name is Western is not in Brightmoor...which is a part of Detroit....maybe even when Western was built. It could also be the case that Brightmoor was originally part of Redford...where Western G&CC is located. I know Redford was at one time much larger, but I don't know what became what. Being an area developed for auto industry housing, Brightmoor could well be a splinter of Redford.
PS...Rouge Park GC is not in Brightmoor either!
Ciao
Brightmoor was the name of the housing/golf community developer B.E. Taylor planned in which the course played a central part. I don't know if it opened as Brightmoor Golf Club and if it did, how long it operated under that name, but it was owned by the Western Land Co. up until 1945, when the membership purchased the club and renamed it Western Golf and Country Country Club. Eventually, the housing community got absorbed into what became Redford, MI as other houses shot up around it. It's easy to differentiate the golf community homes from the rest of the neighborhood, as they tend to be larger and more stately.