How Oakland Hills Country Club became one of golf's most iconic venues

How Oakland Hills Country Club became one of golf’s most iconic venues

Posted by Admin July 22, 2024 Golf

Championship golf is back at Oakland Hills Country Club.

The 2024 U.S. Junior Amateur Championship is set for Michigan’s historic golf course in Bloomfield Township, beginning Monday and running through Saturday. It is the first United States Golf Association tournament hosted at Oakland Hills in eight years (since the 2016 U.S. Amateur), and the first tournament since the South Course underwent a $12 million restoration to more closely mirror Donald Ross’ original design and layout from 1918.

After the restoration, the USGA rekindled its relationship with Oakland Hills and announced eight championships across all age levels and genders to be hosted there between 2024 and 2051.

The U.S. Junior Amateur is the first, followed by the 2029 Women’s Amateur, 2031 U.S. Women’s Open, 2034 U.S. Open, 2038 U.S. Girls’ Junior Amateur, 2042 U.S. Women’s Open, 2047 U.S. Amateur and the 2051 U.S. Open. The 2051 U.S. Open will be the centennial anniversary of Ben Hogan’s U.S. Open victory at Oakland Hills.

New chapters of golf history will be forged on the restored South Course, ranked No. 2 among private golf courses in Michigan by Golfweek for 2024, and among the top 50 tracks in the world.

The course has far fewer trees with wide open sightlines, more sand in the cavernous bunkers, massive slopes and fast, rolling greens that are a hallmark of Ross’ design. The USGA made the commitment to Oakland Hills in 2022, marking it as one of the main courses to be featured over the coming years, along with other iconic venues such as Pinehurst, Oakmont and Pebble Beach.

Here are quick facts to know about Oakland Hills.

Oakland Hills Country Club history

Oakland Hills Country Club has an illustrious history full of many of golf’s greatest champions.

The club was founded in 1916 by Norval Hawkins and Joseph Mack. The South Course opened in 1918 and quickly became home to prominent residents of Detroit at the time, such as Edsel Ford and the Dodge brothers, and began hosting club championships annually.

Mack hired Walter Hagen in 1918 as the club’s first professional — for $300 per month, plus any profits from golf equipment sales, according to Oakland Hills. (Hagen’s 11 major wins are third all-time.)

The first major golf tournament was the 1922 Western Open, then a major, won by Oakland Hills pro Mike Brady; it was the first tournament won by a professional host.

The 2024 U.S. Junior Amateur comes during the 100-year anniversary of the first U.S. Open at Oakland Hills in 1924, which Cyril Walker won over Bobby Jones. It is the first of six U.S. Opens at the club, part of the 11 USGA events to take place there during its 106-year history.

Ralph Guldahl won the 1937 U.S. Open, the first U.S. Open on a course longer than 7,000 yards. Hogan won his third U.S. Open in 1951 on the remade “Monster,” later describing it as the hardest course he had played. Gene Littler won the 1961 U.S. Open over a crowded field that included amateur Jack Nicklaus, followed by a 24-year hiatus until the 1985 U.S. Open, won by Andy North despite shooting 74 on Sunday. Steve Jones won the most recent U.S. Open there in 1996.

The course has also hosted a PGA Championship three times. Gary Player won the first in 1972 after hitting a towering iron over the pond on the 16th hole during the final round, which he has described as the best golf shot of his illustrious career. Seven years later, David Graham won the 1979 PGA by beating Ben Crenshaw in a three-hole playoff. Padraig Harrington won the most recent major hosted at Oakland Hills, the 2008 PGA, with a pair of 66s on the weekend.

Outside of the majors, the course has hosted two U.S. Senior Opens (1981, 1991), two U.S. Amateurs (2002, 2016) and a U.S. Women’s Amateur (1929), as well as dozens of club and state-level tournaments. In 2004, the course hosted the Ryder Cup between the U.S. and Europe, which the Europeans took home with the widest margin of victory for their team in the competition’s history.

Oakland Hills major tournament winners

Oakland Hills Country Club has hosted numerous championship tournaments. Here are some of the biggest, along with the winners:

1922 Western Open: Mike Brady
1924 U.S. Open: Cyril Walker
1929 U.S. Women’s Amateur: Glenna Collett
1937 U.S. Open: Ralph Guldahl
1951 U.S. Open: Ben Hogan
1961 U.S. Open: Gene Littler
1972 PGA Championship: Gary Player
1979 PGA Championship: David Graham in playoff over Ben Crenshaw
1981 U.S. Senior Open: Arnold Palmer in playoff over Billy Casper, Bob Stone
1985 U.S. Open: Andy North
1991 U.S. Senior Open: Jack Nicklaus
1996 U.S. Open: Steve Jones
2002 U.S. Amateur: Ricky Barnes
2004 Ryder Cup: Team Europe
2008 PGA Championship: Padraig Harrington
2016 U.S. Amateur: Curtis Luck

Oakland Hills South Course design

The founding members of Oakland Hills hired Ross, a renowned golf course architect who also designed Detroit Golf Club (now home of the PGA Tour’s Rocket Mortgage Classic), in 1917 to build the South Course. According to the club’s archives, Ross said, “The Lord intended this for a golf course” when he first saw the property.

IT IS TIME: Oakland Hills, Michigan’s ‘cathedral of championship golf,’ ready to return to spotlight

The par-72 course first had few trees and was played as a par-35 on the front 9 and a par-37 on the back. It became a par-36 on both nines ahead of the 1937 U.S. Open, converting the fifth hole to a par-5 and the 14th to a par-4.

Today, the South Course plays as a par-70 for championship tournaments. Ross added hundreds of trees to the course in 1921, according to Free Press archives, to shade the course. Most of those trees were removed a hundred years later during the restoration led by Gil Hanse and Jim Wagner.

In 1941, the course removed 19 bunkers as part of a renovation cut short by World War II.

Ross died in 1948 before he could update the course, so in came Robert Trent Jones Sr., who in 1950 narrowed fairways and added more sand back to the course, creating the famed “Monster” for the 1951 U.S. Open, tamed by Hogan. After saying he would get into another line of business if he had to play there every week during the trophy ceremony, Hogan said, “I’m glad I brought this course — this monster — to its knees,” creating a lasting nickname synonymous with Oakland Hills.

The South Course remained largely untouched until 2006, when Rees Jones followed his father and increased the length of the course to more than 7,400 yards, and re-positioned bunkers and water on the course. Ross’ further plans for renovations were discovered in 2016, leading to the recent restoration to fit his vision.

Ross designed the North course, which opened in 1924 just ahead of the first U.S. Open. It was first a private course, then public from 1933-67, before becoming private again after a member vote. The North Course was renovated by Jones to increase its yardage and re-order the holes in the late ’60s. In 2013, Shawn Smith re-designed the 15th and 16th holes, while increasing the yardage to more than 6,800 yards.

Oakland Hills restoration of South Course

The South Course underwent a restoration led by Hanse and Wagner that started in 2019. The course remained closed for nearly two years as trees were removed and bunkers were added to more closely match Ross’ intended design. It reopened July 2021 with a new look and ready for the next step of its evolution as a host of championship golf, as director of agronomy Phil Cuffare explained in June.

“We brought back the scale of the property,” Cuffare said then, referring to the length and undulating hills on each hole, which now can be viewed with fewer trees blocking the layout.

The South can play 7,500 yards, features more than 200,000 square feet of bunkering that line the fairways and greens, has more than 100 fewer trees than when it hosted the ’08 PGA Championship and the greens were enlarged, adding in slopes and pin location possibilities.

Oakland Hills clubhouse

The course’s iconic 99-year-old clubhouse, perched on a hill at the first tee box that overlooks the entire property, burned down in 2022. It is currently being rebuilt to match the original 1922 design from C. Howard Crane, with groundbreaking in December. It will be under construction during the 2024 U.S. Junior Amateur, and is planned to open in 2026.

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