Game Changing Courses

By golfdigest.com

October 12, 2010

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__1890sShinnecock Hills Golf Club, N.Y.__After a second nine was opened in 1895, it became the first 18-hole course to host a U.S. Open in 1896. C.B. Macdonald remodeled the course in 1917, then William S. Flynn built a new one on the same site in 1931.

__1900sInverness Club, Toledo, Ohio__Its long history is intertwined with offbeat aspects of the U.S. Open. It's the only Open venue remodeled both by Donald Ross (for the 1920 Open) and A.W. Tillinghast (for the 1931 Open). In 1920 Open, 43-year-old winner Ted Ray won, drove the green on the dogleg-left, par-4 seventh every day, perhaps creating the first drivable par 4 in American championship golf 40 years before Arnold Palmer got the notion on Cherry Hills' opening hole.

__1910sMerion Cricket Club, Ardmore, Pa. [now Merion G.C. (East Cse.)]__Like National Golf Links, patterned after great holes in the Old Country, and although its design has long been credited to Hugh Wilson, a recent debate centers on whether C.B. Macdonald deserves credit. Fact is, Wilson solicited ideas from several men, including Macdonald and Old Mac's son-in-law, H.J. Whigham, as well as Richard S. Francis. What is certain is that Wilson was responsible for Merion's famed bunkers, white faces that promoted a new idea, bunkers that stared back at golfers.

__1920sSeminole G.C., Juno Beach, Fla.__Alister Mackenzie showed his artistry at Cypress Point. Donald Ross countered with majesty in south Florida sand dunes. Reportedly the only contract Ross actively pursued in his 50-year career, in a state he really didn't admire.

__1930sBethpage State Park G.C., Farmingdale, N.Y.__Robert Moses, the larger-than-life Commissioner of Park for the city of New York, envisioned "The People's Country Club," a four-course complex of public golf courses at Bethpage that would employ thousands of unemployed.

__1940sPeachtree G.C., Atlanta, Ga.__Bobby Jones teamed with Robert Trent Jones to create an Augusta National-like championship test in his hometown of Atlanta. Its design, featured in national magazines like Time and Saturday Evening Post, turned out to be more representative of Trent Jones than Bobby Jones, measuring 7,400 yards from the tips (an outrageous length for its time) with extended tees (for flexibility), enormous greens (to spread out wear and tear) and several heroic shots over water.

1950sTorrey Pines Municipal G. Cse., La Jolla, Calif.This was another of the prominent 1950s municipal courses developed on prime real estate, a bluff overlooking the Pacific, previously occupied by a sports car racetrack.

1960sHazeltine National G.C., Chaska, Minn.Perhaps the most controversial championship course of the 20th Century. It was designed by Robert Trent Jones for a group that included former U.S.G.A. president Totton P. Heffelfinger. Heffelfinger used his considerable clout to bring the 1966 U.S. Women's Open and 1970 U.S. Open to the very immature layout. Criticisms of the design were so extreme that Trent Jones spent the next two decades periodically remodeling the course, straightening doglegs, relocating holes, and rebuilding greens.

1970sMuirfield Village G.C., Dublin, OhioTeaming with Desmond Muirhead (his new design partner after splitting with Pete Dye), Jack Nicklaus, the greatest golfer of all time, established his own dream course in a suburb of his hometown of Columbus, Ohio. Named for the course where he won his first British Open, but patterned in most ways after Augusta National, particularly in its opulent conditioning.

1980sThe Links at Spanish Bay, Pebble Beach, Calif.The last course created on the Monterey Peninsula was years in the making, as sand had to be imported via long conveyor belts and deposited at various locations on a long, barren stretch of Pacific coastline rock.

1990sWhistling Straits G.C., Haven, Wis.Whistling Straits was a combination of Shadow Creek and Old Works, a complete transformation of an old contaminated army air base replete into a Ballybunion-esque faux linksland that would become the PGA of America's most popular championship venue in the 2000s.

__2000sSebonack G.C., Southampton, N.Y.__Not since Augusta National had the nation's best golfer teamed with one of the most highly regarded course architects on a project. The teaming of Jack Nicklaus with Tom Doak seemed like strange bedfellows, indeed, particularly since Doak had decades earlier written highly critical reviews of some of Nicklaus's designs.

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Game Changing Courses

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