Oakland Hills Country Club (South) Course Review

The Oakland Hills Country Club was founded in 1918 and its golf course features 7099 yards of golf from its longest tees for a 72 par, wearing the signature of famous architects Donald Ross and Robert Trent Jones Sr. According to a golf columnist who once wrote back in the day about this golf course, the Oakland Hills is a symphony. Nowadays, almost everything is computer-related and designed, ranging from music, which is generated by computers to golf course design and even incorrect golf swings. The problem with computers is that they have no feelings, no heart and definitely no soul nor history. No matter how hard they try, a computer generated golf course design cannot compete with this baby, nor obliterate the beautiful echoes of history and the Oakland Hills is proof to that. The influence of Donald Ross in the Oakland Hills golf courses design cannot be erased regardless of how many redesigns will take place in the future.

Because this golf course is a sweet echo of the classic history of golf, a place that spawned epic golf legends and compelling stories, which cannot be replicated elsewhere. The Oakland Hills was the chosen host for the 1922 Western Open and the defining moment in the history of the club was Ben Hogans 1951 triumph. In the same year, Robert Trent Jones Sr. was hired to modernize the golf course for the 1951s Open and he removed eighty original Donald Ross bunkers, which were replaced by sixty new ones of his own design. Also, he did a number on the fairways landing areas, but the Oakland Hills is still a Donald Ross signature course without any doubt. The Oakland Hills country club was host for 6 US Opens and a Ryder Cup during its long history and it makes for a true testimonial of classic golf, representing a time when everything was about golfing in its purest form.