Alison, and golf course contractor William Connellan (who also had a hand in designing several courses in Michigan), had a devil of a time building the course. But in the beginning, it was anything but that.įor one thing, back in the 1920s, landscape architect Lynn Lavis, a Syracuse graduate associated with the British design firm of H.S. Both courses have very similar drive-and-pitch par 4s.Įxplore our complete review here-including bonus photography and ratings from our expert panelists.Īs it exists today, I consider Orchard Lake Country Club to be a classic 1926 Hugh Alison design. Both have par-3 16th holes that play over wasteland to an angled green with bunkers right and left. Each have one long par 4 (the second at Forest Dunes, the fourth at Pine Dunes) that curves to the left through trees, has no fairway bunkers but has one big bunker at the left front of the green. The two worked together for over a decade before splitting up in 1996, and they shared a common philosophy of course design.īoth courses have split personalities, with portions that look like Augusta National-lots of grass, trees, pine needles and gleaming white sand bunkers-and other portions that look like Pine Valley-rugged holes edged by roughs of brownish native sand and scruffy underbrush. But it's uncanny how they created kissing-cousin courses. Though they were working at the same time on their respective projects (Forest Dunes was completed in 2000 but didn't open until 2002 Pine Dunes opened in 2001), I don't think Weiskopf or Morrish had any idea that they were working on such similar courses, and I don't think they stole each other's ideas. That course, Pine Dunes in Frankston, Texas, is built on much the same terrain, sand dunes covered in pines. When I first played it, I was struck by how much Forest Dunes resembles a Texas course designed by Weiskopf's former partner, Jay Morrish. The Tom Weiskopf-designed Forest Dunes in Michigan is a terrific layout on a terrific piece of property, with sand dunes deposited by the nearby Au Sable River and covered with mature pines.īut it's not a unique piece of property. “He’ll give you whatever you want.” Sure enough, Doak was hired for Pacific Dunes, and the Bandon course became one of the best in the nation.įrom Golf Digest Architecture Editor emeritus Ron Whitten: “Doak’s a professional,” he was told by another in his group. “I can’t have him build these kind of greens for the retail golfer,” Keiser said. When Keiser played the course on opening day, he was considering hiring Doak to design Pacific Dunes.
“The wildest set of greens I’ve ever built,” said Doak soon after it opened. Since the greens were shaped from native sand, the green contours are very bold. (Nothing wrong with that: Oakmont is bisected by the Pennsylvania Turnpike.) There was still plenty of sand left in the quarry, which allowed Doak and his team to create some vast sandy waste areas as well as windblown dunes-style bunkers. Lost Dunes Golf Club, a half hour north along the same sand ridge, was created from an old sand quarry, lined on three sides by 60-foot-tall forested sand dunes, bottomed by two deep pit lakes and traversed through the center by I-94. Opens to Oakland Hills-as well as a number of upcoming USGA championships.Īnyone who has ever played Mike Keiser’s terrific nine-hole Dunes Club in New Buffalo, Mich.-one of the best nine-hole courses in America, if not the best-is familiar with the “lost dunes” that exist along that stretch of Lake Michigan in southeast Michigan. The course re-opened in Spring 2021, and though a crippling fire destroyed the club's iconic clubhouse, the USGA delivered some kind news to the club, bringing the 20 U.S. They did that by expanding greens to recapture what are some of Ross's best contours, removed trees to show off the rolling landscape and shifted bunkers back to where Ross, not RTJ, placed them.
In 2019, the South course closed as Gil Hanse and his team significantly renovated the course with the intention of removing the Jones influences and restoring its Ross feel. Sixty-plus years later, Oakland Hills is even longer, but its bite wasn’t severe when it hosted the 2016 U.S. His rebunkering was overshadowed by ankle-deep rough, and after Ben Hogan closed with a 67, one of only two rounds under par 70 all week, to win his second consecutive Open, he complained that Jones had created a Frankenstein. Sadly, he died in 1948, so Robert Trent Jones got the job.
Donald Ross felt his 1918 design was out-of-date for the 1951 U.S.