Los Angeles Country Club’s North Course won’t play like most other U.S. Open host sites. Designed by George C. Thomas Jr. and opened in 1928, then restored in 2010, LACC will offer wider fairways with a greater emphasis on strategy than many recent Open courses.
The team of Gil Hanse, Jim Wagner, Geoff Shackelford and several top assistants cleared out loads of trees during that 2010 restoration, allowing the course to play as Thomas intended. That means players must be on the proper side of a given fairway to attack flags on various portions of the greens – even a good swing from the wrong angle can result in a missed green.
Many holes feature greens with bunkers carved into the putting surface – it’s entirely possible to have to pitch from a putting surface, over a bunker and back onto a green, or to have to putt around the trap and accept your fate.
And don’t consider all that width off the tee to be necessarily easy. Many of the fairways feature dramatic slopes, forcing players to consider accuracy to a preferred high spot in the fairway over raw distance that might result in a steep approach shot.
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Take a look at photos of all 18 holes below, with a brief description of each for the 2023 U.S. Open.