StrackaLine offers a hole-by-hole course guide for East Lake Golf Club.
East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta – site of the PGA Tour’s 2023 Tour Championship and the finale in the FedEx Cup Playoffs – originally was designed by Tom Bendelow and opened in 1908. Donald Ross redesigned the layout in 1913, and Rees Jones worked on the course in 1994.
Architect Andrew Green will begin another renovation, with a goal of returning many of the Ross features to East Lake, soon after the last putt drops in the Tour Championship.
The course will play to 7,346 yards and a par of 70 for the Tour Championship. Nos. 1 and 14 normally play as par 5s for members, but they will be listed as par 4s for the Tour Championship with only Nos. 6 and 18 playing as par 5s.
Thanks to yardage books provided by StrackaLine – the maker of detailed yardage books for thousands of courses around the world – we can see exactly the challenges the players face this week.
Sedgefield Country Club – site of the 2023 Wyndham Championship on the PGA Tour – opened in 1926 in Greensboro, North Carolina, with a design by legendary architect Donald Ross.
The private layout, which features relatively small and undulating greens, was extensively restored in 2007 by Kris Spence. The Tour event returned in 2008.
Sedgefield will play to 7,131 yards with a par of 70 for the Wyndham Championship, which is the final event of the Tour’s regular season and the last chance for players to earn entry into the 70-player FedEx Cup Playoffs.
Thanks to yardage books provided by StrackaLine – the maker of detailed yardage books for thousands of courses around the world – we can see exactly the challenges the players face this week in North Carolina.
StrackaLine offers a hole-by-hole course guide for the Rocket Mortgage Classic.
Detroit Golf Club’s courses, site of the 2023 Rocket Mortgage Classic on the PGA Tour, were designed by legendary architect Donald Ross and opened in 1916.
The Rocket Mortgage Classic is played on a combination course of the club’s two layouts, the North and the South. The tournament layout starts on No. 8 of the North Course, then plays No. 9 of the North. Players then tackle what is normally No. 1 of the South Course before teeing off on what is normally No. 2 of the North and playing the next five holes in order.
For the hole maps shown below, the front nine includes a hole number in a red circle, indicating that hole’s position for the Rocket Mortgage Classic.
The back nine is the same as usual for the North, playing in order from No. 10 through 18.
The combined layout will play to 7,370 yards with a par of 72 for this week’s tournament.
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Thanks to yardage books provided by StrackaLine – the maker of detailed yardage books for thousands of courses around the world – we can see exactly the challenges the pros face this week at TPC River Highlands.
The back nine will provide plenty of challenges for players and outstanding looks for audiences.
ROCHESTER, N.Y. — With the restoration of Oak Hill’s East Course back to more closely emulate the original Donald Ross design, even fans who are familiar with the storied course will notice some subtle differences.
The back nine will provide plenty of challenges for players and outstanding looks for audiences.
Oak Hill’s East will play to 7,394 yards with a par of 70 for this week’s major championship.
What do the pros face this week in the PGA Championship? StrackaLine shares the details on Oak Hill East.
Oak Hill’s East Course in Rochester, New York – site of this week’s PGA Championship – originally was designed by architectural legend Donald Ross and opened in 1926. The layout was revised several times over the decades, most recently as Andrew Green put much of the Ross flavor back into the East.
Oak Hill’s East will play to 7,394 yards with a par of 70 for this week’s major championship.
Thanks to yardage books provided by StrackaLine – the maker of detailed yardage books for thousands of courses around the world – we can see exactly the challenges the pros face this week at Oak Hill.
When did this pristine place become worthy of major championships? Much like the course, that answer is still evolving.
ROCHESTER, N.Y — To witness Oak Hill Country Club’s East Course, a masterful layout that will test the world’s top players at the 2023 PGA Championship, is to see an ever-evolving block of clay, one that’s been molded and re-molded over a century.
So that begs a question: When did this pristine place become worthy of major championships?
Much like the course, that answer is still evolving.
The first glimpse the golf world got of the Donald Ross design came in 1934, when the City of Rochester’s 100th birthday and the 20th anniversary of hometown hero Walter Hagen’s U.S. Open win at Midlothian Country Club were rolled into a celebration at the course. Hagen invited a number of his closest friends, many of whom were big fish in the golf pond.
Although Hagen, then 41 years old, failed to crack the top 10 in the event, he played admirably. Meanwhile, the tournament was won by Leo Diegel, a four-time Ryder Cupper who won a pair of PGA Championships. Diegel shot 4 under to take the title, and he left as one of many who were impressed with the course.
May 15, 2023; Rochester, New York, USA; Fans walk behind the 1st hole during a practice round of the PGA Championship golf tournament at Oak Hill Country Club. Mandatory Credit: Adam Cairns-USA TODAY Sports
“It was the first time many of the great golfers of the world had ever seen Oak Hill East,” said club historian Fred Beltz, who joked that he didn’t attend that event. “This gave members at Oak Hill a taste of big-time golf and it gave big-time golf a taste of Oak Hill.”
And while that first peek didn’t result in instant success in terms of catapulting Oak Hill onto a national tournament stage, it helped build some momentum. In 1941, the founder of the Gannett newspaper chain – now owners of USA Today, Golfweek and the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle – put up $5,000 to host the first Times-Union Open, named in honor of the now-defunct afternoon newspaper. Frank Gannett, who was a member at Oak Hill, hoped the tournament would shed light on the track’s beauty and could serve as a gateway to Rochester hosting a larger tournament.
In 1941, Sam Snead was victorious in the event, but the crowning achievement came in 1942 when Ben Hogan set the layout ablaze, breaking the course record with a 64 in his opening round. It was a record that stood for 71 years, only matched in tournament play by Curtis Strange, who also shot 64 on his way to winning the U.S. Open in 1989.
Although the tournament was building steam, World War II threw a monkey wrench in any plans to grow the Times-Union event, and it was shuttered.
“The war years really limited a lot of professional golf,” Beltz said. “But then, when we moved into the big time, in my opinion, was in 1949 when we hosted the U.S. Amateur. In 1934 is when the world saw the course, in ’41-’42 we got a taste of bigger events, but then in 1949, that’s when we really got to the big stage.”
The story goes that at some point after the war, USGA executive director Joe Dey came to Oak Hill and was in awe of the design.
“Dey saw the course and said, ‘Where have you been? There’s nothing else like this in the whole country,’” Beltz said.
That 1949 Am was won by Charles Coe, widely regarded as one of the greatest American amateurs in history. Coe went on to win another U.S. Am in 1958 and finished second to Gary Player in the 1961 Masters.
From there, the course scored a pair of U.S. Opens in the next two decades, first the 1956 edition won by Cary Middlecoff and then the 1968 tournament, which proved to be the first PGA Tour victory and the first of six majors for 28-year-old Lee Trevino.
In Trevino’s win, he posted rounds in the 60s all four days, a first in a U.S. Open, but Beltz contends the course was susceptible to a low score, due to a specific set of circumstances.
“The course was lined with Dutch Elm trees, and the course went through a bout with Dutch Elm disease,” Beltz said. “The course was easier to attack than normal, but give Trevino credit. He did it.”
When the USGA started to ask if the course was difficult enough to warrant major championships in the 1970s, club leaders summoned George Fazio and his nephew Tom to add some new wrinkles. The course played tougher and continued to host major events – including the 1995 Ryder Cup won by a European side that secured victory when Irish rookie Philip Walton topped Jay Haas on the 18th green.
Haas would return to exact some revenge, capturing the 2008 Senior PGA Championship in Pittsford. And the course hosted a pair of PGA Championships, one in 2003 won by Shaun Micheel and another in 2013 when Jason Dufner broke Hogan and Strange’s course record, one that stood for 71 years, by shooting a 63 en route to victory.
Jason Dufner celebrates with the Wannamaker Trophy after winning the 95th PGA Championship at Oak Hill Country Club. Mandatory Credit: Allan Henry-USA TODAY Sports
“I don’t want to take anything away from Dufner, but the course got quite a bit of rain, so it was really receptive, and there was a graduated rough,” Beltz explained. “The course was definitely playing on the easier side. And the older course was a little shorter and if you look at that with older equipment against a slightly longer course and new equipment, I’ll take the latter over the former any day.”
Fearing it had lost its roots, the course was renovated again in 2019 by Andrew Green, who attempted to restore the East Course to the original design Ross created nearly a century ago.
For Beltz, who has been picking at the club’s history for two decades, this offers a watershed moment in 2023 with the return of the PGA Championship. He’s hoping this year’s event ushers in a modern era of major tournaments at a place that has seen its fair share of changes.
“This is a pivotal year, for sure,” Beltz said. “If the players like the renovations and the weather treats us right, this could be a place where major championships are held for a long, long time.”
Oak Hill’s East Course will challenge the best players in the world. To see it from above is something special.
ROCHESTER, N.Y. — The piece of property housing the Oak Hill East Course that will challenge the best players in the world has undergone numerous changes over the years.
The original Donald Ross design first got some national love in 1934, when the City of Rochester’s 100th birthday and the 20th anniversary of hometown hero Walter Hagen’s U.S. Open win at Midlothian Country Club were rolled into a celebration at the course.
In the 1970s, club leaders called on George Fazio and his nephew Tom to add some new wrinkles. Then, the course was renovated again in 2019 by Andrew Green.
Here’s a look at the front nine of the course, which will be in the international spotlight this week:
Starting in 2015, the club decided to put the Donald Ross flair back into the course.
Nothing remains static on a golf course for long.
Grass grows, often in new places and in unexpected ways. Bunkers shift as sand is blasted out by players. Trees grow, blocking light, air and playing lines. Undulations shift on greens, which themselves often shrink over years and decades. Whether through intentional architectural efforts or natural evolution, every golf course changes in time.
Opened in 1926 with a design by architectural legend Donald Ross, the East had undergone many changes over the decades, many of them in pursuit of additional challenge to the best players in the world. Among its many championships, the East has hosted three PGA Championships (1980, ’03 and ’13) and three U.S. Opens (1956, ’68 and ’89), with winners including the likes of Jack Nicklaus, Lee Trevino and Curtis Strange. Add to those events a rich history of amateur and senior events, plus the 1995 Ryder Cup, and Oak Hill’s rich championship history clearly ranks among the best clubs in the world.
The greens for Nos. 4 and 5 at Oak Hill Country Club’s East Course in Rochester, New York (Photo: Gabe Gudgel/Golfweek)
But the course had changed dramatically over the years, losing much of its Ross flavor. Robert Trent Jones tweaked the East in the 1950s and ’60s, including – in the name of spectator flow – the replacement of a par 4 considered by many to be among the best in the country.
In the 1970s, George and Tom Fazio further modernized the layout, redesigning three holes – the fifth, sixth and 15th – and moving the 18th green. While these changes were all implemented in the interest of increased difficulty for touring professionals, the club received criticism about eliminating too much of Ross’s original design.
Add in naturally occurring changes to the course over the years, and club officials knew it was time to make some changes.
“It’s just like owning a home in some regard. You always have to do some housekeeping, always have to do some updating,” said Jeff Corcoran, Oak Hill’s manager of golf courses and grounds. “And I think the progression of the game dictates a lot of the work you need to do, in some regards, if you want to be a golf course that hosts major championships.”
Starting in 2015, the club decided to put the Ross flair back into the course. It hired architect Andrew Green, who the club said worked with Corcoran; Jeff Sluman, PGA Tour professional and Rochester native; and an East Course Restoration Committee led by Tim Thaney and Jim McKenna. The club said its objectives were to add length where possible, create more forward tees for members, expand areas where cups could be cut into greens and to evaluate options for holes that had been changed over the years. Green used Ross’s original drawings and historical photos to determine the best course of action in restoring the layout.
“Donald Ross set the East Course at Oak Hill Country Club on a stunning piece of ground where the holes turn direction and flow over the property in an inspired fashion,” Green – who has established himself as a restoration expert with such work completed at Wannamoisett, Inverness, Congressional and several other such classic layouts – told the club at the outset of the restoration. “We will utilize every ounce of historic data to reflect the strategy, style and intent of Ross with a keen eye on the way the game of golf is played today. The results will protect the legacy of Oak Hill for decades to come.”
The newly renovated sixth hole at Oak Hill Country Club’s East Course in Rochester, N.Y. (Gary Kellner/PGA of America)
Work wrapped up in 2019, with each of the 18 greens having been rebuilt to U.S. Golf Association specifications with enhanced drainage to provide firm playing conditions. All the bunkers were rebuilt with improved drainage and some were relocated, and they are now more classically Ross in appearance. An overabundance of trees of was removed to improve playing conditions, open vistas and reestablish playing lines. More than 175,000 square feet of new bent grass was installed on the putting surfaces and approaches, the club said, and Green led the restoration of green sizes and sometimes the alteration of existing contours to reestablish classic hole locations that had been lost in time.
“The big thing people are going to see is a tremendous amount of variety in the daily setup, because there are going to be hole locations that members haven’t seen for maybe 40, 50 years,” Green said in a club video commemorating the restoration. “It’s going to add to the aura and how great a major championship venue that it is.”
Most important, the three holes that been altered by previous designers were rebuilt to better match the intent of Ross, even if it was impossible to rebuild them exactly.
“Nos. 5, 6, 15 and to a lesser extent 18 had been the three or four holes that have been the most vilified here at Oak Hill,” Corcoran said. “They are the holes that were redone prior to the ’80 PGA. As we were walking around, we were like, if we’re going to all this trouble on the East Course, shouldn’t we rectify this biggest perceived problem?
“It really came down to, if we were going to redo something, how would we redo it in keeping the original architectural intent that Donald Ross had envisioned of this property? Andrew is phenomenal at that.”
The newly renovated fifth hole at Oak Hill Country Club’s East Course in Rochester, N.Y. (Gary Kellner/PGA of America)
Green designed a new fifth hole, a par 3 named Little Poison, in the same spot that held a par-3 fifth for the 1968 U.S. Open. The new green is slightly elevated and surrounded by Ross-inspired bunkers, with a wide range of flagstick locations and assorted challenges for any player who misses the putting surface on approach.
The club said the new par-4 sixth “sympathetically represents” Ross’s original par 4. Named Double Trouble, the hole crosses Allen’s Creek – a prominent feature throughout any round on the East – and can be stretched beyond 500 yards in a championship.
The new par-3 15th hole, named Plateau, removes a pond introduced during the Fazios’ renovation in the 1970s and reintroduces a large swale aside the “Postage Stamp” style of green that is long and narrow.
“They just feel like they flow,” Corcoran said of the new holes. “When you used to go to the old fifth and sixth holes, you would get to those holes and go, it just doesn’t flow, it doesn’t feel right. Anybody who had a little bent toward golf course architecture could definitely see it.
“Restoring that architectural intent, there’s just something very satisfying about that and knowing that future generations are going to get 18 contiguous holes to play out here. That’s a pretty special thing.”
The Donald Ross design’s North and South courses combine to form 18 holes for the Rocket Mortgage Classic, which is scheduled to be held on June 29 through July 2.
Vandalism at the Detroit Golf Club in mid-April has temporarily shut down two holes on the North Course, where the Rocket Mortgage Classic will be played next month.
Detroit police are investigating an apparent chemical spill on the course’s 11th and 12th greens that occurred between April 16 and 17. Police officials did not offer any details, other than they are aware of the incident, and are actively investigating it.
When I called Wednesday, the Detroit Golf Club declined comment.
But a social media post shows that an enormous area of grass on the greens is brown, the damage in a figure-eight pattern.
According to Nichols’ reporting, Stephen “Sam” Moynihan, head golf superintendent, told members in an email that a lab examination of the grass found “the active ingredient of Round-Up, glyphosate” on both greens. Glyphosate, in simple terms, is a weed killer.
Moynihan wrote in the email that his assessment is that the greens have suffered “very severe tip damage,” not enough to kill the roots of the grass.
But the incident will cause both holes to remain closed indefinitely.
“The greens will need to remain closed to allow the fastest possible recovery time and to keep any undue stress off the plants,” Moynihan wrote in the email, obtained by the Detroit Free Press. “The length of time the greens will take to recover will continue to be weather dependent, the colder the weather, the slower the recovery. I will be working in conjunction with the PGA Tour Agronomy Department to develop an appropriate plan for optimal recovery.”
The vandalism at the course likely won’t disrupt the high-profile Rocket Mortgage Classic, to be held June 27 through July 2.
The tournament layout starts on No. 8 of the North Course, then plays No. 9 of the North. Players then tackle what is normally No. 1 of the South Course before teeing off on what is normally No. 2 of the North and playing the next five holes in order.
Tony Finau celebrates with his caddie Mark Urbanek after winning the 2022 Rocket Mortgage Classic in Detroit. (Photo: Raj Mehta-USA TODAY Sports)
The back nine is the same as usual for the North, playing in order from No. 10 through 18. The composite course has played to a par of 72 at 7,334 yards for the Rocket Mortgage Classic.
Both the North and the South were designed by legendary architect Donald Ross and opened in 1916.
“They say a winner is just a loser that just kept on trying, and that’s me to a T,” Finau said. “How many times do I lose? But one thing I won’t do is give up, and I’m only here as a winner because I chose not to give up and just keep going.”
Finau, 32, became the first player to win consecutive tournaments since Patrick Cantlay did so a year ago at the BMW Championship and Tour Championship. It was Cantlay who produced the biggest threat to spoil Finau’s day. Cantlay birdied five of the first eight holes in his final round, but a bogey at No. 12 was costly. The reigning FedEx Cup champion shot 6-under 66, recording his Tour-best 10th top-10 finish of the season.
Donald Ross’s list of top-ranked courses extends into New Hampshire.
The influence of famed golf architect Donald Ross stretches across the Golfweek’s Best course rankings, including into New Hampshire.
Omni Mount Washington’s Ross design was completed in 1915 and was restored in 2008 by Brian Silva. It ranks as the No. 1 public-access layout in New Hampshire on Golfweek’s Best Courses You Can Play list in 2022, a distinction it has held for more than a decade.
Golfweek’s Best offers many lists of course rankings, with that oftop public-access courses in each stateamong the most popular. All the courses on this list allow public access in some fashion, be it standard daily green fees, through a resort or by staying at an affiliated hotel. If there’s a will, there’s a tee time.
