Columbus Country Club’s present championship course took shape in two major Donald Ross phases layered onto an earlier nine by Tom Bendelow. Contemporary accounts at the club and later summaries agree that Bendelow laid out the first course on Orlando A. Miller’s estate in the 1900s (sources alternately give 1903 or 1907).
Ross first arrived in 1914 to renovate the existing nine and add a second nine, creating a full 18-hole routing, and he returned in 1920 to “remodel and lengthen” the course as equipment and local competition advanced. Club narratives also state that Ross and his associates remained connected to the course through the interwar years, with site visits and touch-ups recorded between 1915 and 1940.
After Ross, the club periodically commissioned targeted alterations. During the 1920s, C. H. Alison (of the Colt & Alison partnership) is credited with upgrades on holes 6, 7, 14 and 18. In the run-up to the 1964 PGA Championship, Dick Wilson adjusted holes 1, 3, 7 and 17 to bolster championship yardage and hazards. In the late 1980s, Geoffrey Cornish and Brian Silva reworked selected greens and bunkers.
A modern, two-phase renovation—master plan by Keith Foster, construction oversight by Kevin Hargrave—began after Labor Day 2016 on the front nine and continued in autumn 2017 on the back, with the course reopening in May 2018. The work replaced every bunker in a flat-bottom/steep-grass-face idiom, expanded fairways and green perimeters where evidence allowed, added forward and back tees, cleared over 1,500–2,000 trees to reopen the property’s vistas and wind, and addressed long-standing drainage failures on the lower floodplain. The club describes this as a return to Ross scale and set-up rather than a strict, plan-for-plan restoration—necessary because a 1960s clubhouse fire destroyed most original drawings.
As presented today, Columbus CC plays as a par 72 over roughly 7,000 yards from the back tees (commonly listed at ~7,003), with multiple teeing grounds to compress the course to the mid-5,000s for everyday play.
Unique design characteristics
Ross’s 1914–1920 work exploited a striking two-level site split by a bluff: an upper terrace near the clubhouse and a lower terrace flanking a floodplain. The opening stretch (holes 1–3) drops from the clubhouse into a ravine and climbs back out, then holes 5–7 occupy the lower level before the routing returns to higher ground—an arrangement still legible and noted by modern raters. The 11th green sits just beyond a shallow hollow, a classic Ross placement that accepts a run-up if one shapes the approach through the swale.
The 2016–18 work intentionally re-emphasized ground access into greens—“run the ball up … on every hole,” as the club president summarized—by pushing short fairway cut closer to green pads and by refitting bunkers as flat-bottomed with steep grass faces, a style consistent with the limited period imagery available. With tree corridors reduced, the strategic value shifted back to bunker diagonals and fairway width, rather than arboreal penalty, a point the club and Hargrave both stressed. Clearing the bluff between the 5th and 10th tees recaptured long cross-property vistas and turned No. 10 into one of the course’s most visually open and intimidating drives without adding a single yard.
While several holes carry later architect fingerprints (see below), many of the middle-course greensites on the upper terrace—especially in the 8–13 corridor—still read as Ross in intent: modestly elevated targets with front-edge contour that sheds indifferent approaches, recovery areas that ask for delicate uphill chips, and fairway cant that rewards an approach angle from one half of the short grass. These characteristics are not speculative; they were consciously protected or re-expressed in the 2016–18 work because early documents were lost and only field evidence plus period analogs (Hargrave cites extensive on-site study at Whitinsville) could guide the refit.
Among the clearest surviving expressions of Ross’s Columbus ideas today: the transition on 1–3 (routing using natural relief rather than forced earthwork), the lower-terrace trio at 5–7 (using floodplain width and angle to frame lay-up and go-zones), and the 11th’s green placement beyond the hollow. Each reflects site-first routing and approach-angle emphasis that the Hargrave/Foster program sought to re-center.
Historical significance
Within Ross’s Midwest portfolio, Columbus is notable as a pre-Scioto central-Ohio commission that he revisited after the First World War to re-arm for contemporary play, and as a canvas later touched by both Colt & Alison and Dick Wilson—placing it at an intersection of design schools. The club hosted the 1964 PGA Championship (par 70, 6,851 yards that week), where Bobby Nichols won wire-to-wire over Jack Nicklaus and Arnold Palmer; Ben Hogan, age 51, tied ninth. In the post-war PGA Tour era, Columbus also staged the Columbus Invitational in 1946 (won by Byron Nelson) and 1947 (won by Bobby Locke).
Current condition / integrity
The routing framework established under Ross (upper terrace → lower terrace → back to the bluff) remains intact, and the scale of fairways and approaches has been restored to read as Golden-Age rather than corridor golf. That said, certain holes reflect documented non-Ross alterations: 6, 7, 14, 18 (Alison, 1920s), 1, 3, 7, 17 (Wilson, early 1960s), and a late-1980s greens/bunker refresh (Cornish & Silva). The 2016–18 program did not seek to undo all of those layers; instead it harmonized their forms with Ross’s broader scheme—replacing all bunkers, expanding fairways and green perimeters where appropriate, adding tees for inclusive set-up, and removing over 1,500–2,000 trees to re-expose wind and sightlines across the property. Because original plans were lost in a 1960s fire, this was a renovation with Ross cues, not an archival restoration. Current published yardage sits around 7,000 yards (par 72) with a back-tee listing of ~7,003 and multiple shorter configurations for members.
Disputed / uncertain points: (a) Bendelow year: some club copy cites 1903, others 1907, for the original nine; both appear in reputable summaries. (b) Colt vs. Alison: some club materials shorthand “Harry Colt” when attributing 1920s work; Top100 specifies C. H. Alison and the particular holes; given the partnership’s practice, the precise hand is occasionally conflated. (c) Exact Ross return visits between 1915 and 1940 are asserted in club/DRS write-ups but lack surviving day-by-day documentation due to the 1960s fire; the timeline should be considered probable rather than fully documented.
Sources & Notes
Golf Course Architecture, “Columbus Country Club renovation reaches halfway point,” July 6, 2017. (Project phases; Bendelow 1903/1907; Ross 1914/1920; scope; bunker style; tree removal counts.)
Golf Course Architecture, “Those that knew the course before are in awe of the changes,” Sept. 17, 2019. (Drainage fixes; loss of original drawings in 1960s fire; strategic intent; renovation details.)
Columbus Country Club site pages (About/History; Course Renovations; Course Tour/Scorecard). (Ross phases; renovation narrative; vistas/bluff clearing near 5 & 10; yardage and par; scorecard access.)
Donald Ross Society, “Featured Club – Columbus Country Club (Columbus, OH).” (Bendelow attribution; Ross involvement 1915–1940; renovation dates and scope.)
Top100GolfCourses.com entry for Columbus (Championship). (Alison, Wilson, Cornish/Silva interventions and hole numbers; tree removal totals.)
Wikipedia, “1964 PGA Championship.” (Event dates, yardage, par, winner and contenders at Columbus CC.)
GolfPass listing for Columbus Country Club (Championship). (Back-tee yardage/tee set range; par.)
Golf Digest course blurb. (Site form: holes 1–3 into the ravine; 5–7 on the lower level; description of the 11th.)
Note: Because primary Ross drawings were lost in the 1960s clubhouse fire, several attributions of exact green perimeters and bunker counts rest on field evidence supplemented by comparative study; where uncertainty remains, the renovation elected to express Ross characteristics rather than hypothesize exact original forms.