Oakland Hills Country Club’s founders, Joseph Mack and Norval Hawkins, hired Donald Ross in 1916 to lay out the South Course on rolling farmland along Maple Road. Construction proceeded in 1917 and the course formally opened on July 13, 1918.
Ross continued to advise the club after opening. In 1921, he oversaw planting about 170 shade trees—“mostly around tees”—a maintenance-driven adjustment rather than an attempt to “frame” fairways. The club’s records also note that Ross prepared rough drawings in 1938 suggesting updates; after his death in 1948 those sketches were handed to the club’s next consultant. Together, these entries document Ross’s ongoing involvement through late career and provide the clearest surviving hints of his evolving thoughts about the South.
Contemporaries and later chroniclers attributed to Ross an unusually enthusiastic assessment of the property. At the club’s inception in 1916, Ross reportedly looked over the site and declared, “The Lord intended this for a golf links,” a statement echoed in later profiles and consistent with his very open early presentation of the course. While the exact wording is hard to source to a primary club minute, it has been repeated in historical accounts.
The course subsequently underwent two major non-Ross interventions before a modern restoration sought to recapture his intent. For the 1951 U.S. Open, Robert Trent Jones Sr. rebuilt the South into the famed “Monster,” narrowing fairways, shrinking and relocating greens, and inserting hazards to block ground approaches; period accounts and later retrospectives describe, for example, hurried work on the rebuilt sixteenth and the strategic aim of forcing aerial shots.
In the 2000s, Rees Jones—preparing the South for the 2004 Ryder Cup and 2008 PGA—added 16 new championship tees, lengthened the course by roughly 350 yards, relocated and added fairway and greenside bunkers, and narrowed most fairways.
From late 2019 to July 2021, Gil Hanse and Jim Wagner led a comprehensive, research-driven restoration aimed at returning the South to Ross’s ground-game-friendly, wide-corridor character while accommodating modern championship play. The team leaned on Ross drawings, sequential aerials, and—crucially—the official program for the 1929 U.S. Women’s Amateur at Oakland Hills, which contained ground-level photographs of every green.
Unique design characteristics (as they exist today)
Hanse’s work cored out each putting surface to original subgrade and rebuilt the greens to USGA spec, using 3D laser scans to preserve existing slopes. Average green size expanded from 5,889 to roughly 8,000 square feet (about +34%), reinstating perimeter hole locations and the broad, tilting edges that animate Ross’s interior contours.
Bunkering was reduced in number but enlarged in scale—125 bunkers totaling ~125,000 sq. ft. became 103 bunkers covering ~200,000 sq. ft.—and, where landforms allowed, key carry bunkers were pushed downfield to reflect modern distances while re-establishing Ross’s diagonal, angle-setting placements. On a dozen holes, fronting bunkers were peeled back or removed to reopen ground entries that photographs from 1929 show were integral to Ross’s greens.
Several holes illustrate how Ross’s original ideas are expressed on the restored South:
• No. 2 (par 5): A new back tee (592 yards) creates a diagonal, bite-off-as-you-dare drive over a bunker array that echoes Ross’s plan; the hole’s restored width and open approach let the ground influence the second and third shots.
• No. 5 (par 4) and No. 11 (par 4): Shapers subtly shifted fairway apexes and cross-slopes 20–30 yards to place restored carry bunkers on natural upslope, recreating Ross’s intended angle puzzles without advertising the earthwork.
• No. 7 (par 4): The single most dramatic reversion; the team rediscovered Ross’s original green pad (then in rough, with a cart path bisecting it) and rebuilt the hole from the Ross template after decades of Jones-era alterations, including a moved green and pond.
• No. 8 (par 4/5): The restored false front, long documented by photographs and now again ruthless, repels timid approaches 60-plus yards—an explicit return of a Ross hallmark on this ridge-top green.
• No. 15 (par 4): Hanse fused Ross’s original diagonal bunker array on the inside of the dogleg with the post-war central hazard introduced in 1951, creating multiple routes that scale with ability while respecting both historical iterations.
• No. 16 (par 4): The fairway width and a right-side bunker restored Ross’s tee-shot options; historically resonant strategy returned even though the green itself remains the 1951 Robert Trent Jones surface. Golf Course ArchitectureThe Fried Egg
• No. 18 (par 4): Removal of front bunkers reopened the ground approach in line with Ross’s 1929 green photos, curbing the mid-century “aerial only” demand.
As surviving expressions of Ross after a century of change, the clearest examples now include No. 7 (wholesale recovery of the original hole), No. 2 (Ross-style diagonal driving challenge married to an open entrance), and No. 11(angles shaped by landforms and diagonal hazards). Each instance is documented in the restoration record and contemporary course analysis.
Historical significance within Ross’s corpus
Ross’s South Course joined the U.S. Open rota scarcely six years after opening, hosting in 1924 and again in 1937, cementing it as one of the earliest Ross designs to carry repeated national-championship duty. The South would host six U.S. Opens in total (1924, 1937, 1951, 1961, 1985, 1996), a record matched by only a handful of venues.
The club also staged the 1929 U.S. Women’s Amateur on the South, whose program supplied the key green photographs used in the 2020–21 restoration; that event thus indirectly shaped the course’s modern historical recovery.
Jones’s 1951 modernization—producing the “Monster” Ben Hogan subdued—became a template for mid-century championship renovations nationwide. Its rationale and execution are well-documented in period and later sources and are important in understanding how much of Ross’s ground game was suppressed for decades at Oakland Hills.
In recent years, the restored South returned to major-host prominence: the USGA awarded an unprecedented slate of future championships, including the 2024 U.S. Junior Amateur, 2031 & 2042 U.S. Women’s Opens, 2034 & 2051 U.S. Opens, and other events through 2047—an institutional vote of confidence linked directly to the historical renovation.
Within current assessments, Oakland Hills (South) remains a mainstay on national lists: Golf Digest ranks it No. 20 on America’s 100 Greatest (2025–26), and GOLF Magazine lists it No. 20 in the U.S. (2024–25), with both write-ups explicitly noting the Hanse restoration’s role in re-presenting Ross’s ideas.
Current condition / integrity of Ross work
Routing remains Ross’s. The 2019–21 work reopened corridors (significant tree management), broadened fairways to historic widths, and restored diagonal bunkering patterns and open green fronts shown in the 1929 imagery. Coring greens down to original subgrades preserved the underlying Ross ground forms, and the rebuild added modern infrastructure (USGA profiles and subsurface ventilation) without altering the intended grades, except where two par-3 greens (Nos. 9 and 17) needed minor adjustments to regain viable hole locations.
Two greens—15 and 16—remain Robert Trent Jones surfaces by deliberate choice; Hanse restored the Ross strategies around them but kept those RTJ greens for reasons of quality (15) and tradition (16, site of Gary Player’s famous 1972 PGA shot). On balance, that leaves sixteen greens reading, to the player’s eye and ball, as Ross—either directly on preserved subgrades or as restored to his forms—within a 100% Ross routing.
Earlier non-Ross alterations are well-documented and explain what was lost and recovered. Jones Sr.’s 1951 project narrowed fairways, shrank and moved greens, and added hazards to block run-ups—suppressing Ross’s open entrances. Rees Jones later lengthened and further tightened the course in the 2000s to defend par for the Ryder Cup and PGA. The 2021 restoration reversed those trends: fairways were widened, fronting bunkers were removed or pulled aside on about 12 holes, and the number of bunkers dropped while their average size and horizontal “presence” increased to match Ross’s scale.
Specific preserved vs. altered elements today: the routing and many original green contours (via subgrade preservation) are intact; two greens (15 & 16) are intentionally not Ross; bunkers are predominantly in Ross-like diagonal and scattered arrays, with several carry bunkers relocated downfield to maintain his intent at modern distances; trees have been significantly reduced to recover historic cross-views and playing width seen in early photographs; and turf/soil profiles have been rebuilt to USGA standards to protect those restored contours.
Sources & Notes
1. Oakland Hills Country Club — “History” timeline (establishment; July 13, 1918 opening; 1921 trees under Ross’s supervision; 1938 Ross sketches turned over after his death; 2022 USGA slate).
2. Wikipedia summary of establishment (1916), opening (1918), and context; used for corroboration with club sources.
3. Golf Course Architecture, Bradley Klein, “Oakland Hills South roars back” (Aug. 11, 2021): scope of Hanse restoration; use of 1929 Women’s Amateur program photos; laser survey/USGA green rebuild; green size increase (~5,889 to ~8,000 sq ft); bunker count/area change (125→103; 125k→200k sq ft); removal of front bunkers on ~12 holes; examples on 5, 11, 15, 16, 18; routing and high-point nodes; fairway widening/tree work; July 2021 reopening.
4. The Fried Egg, “Oakland Hills Country Club (South) — Course Profile” (Aug. 8, 2024): details on No. 7 restoration to original pad; No. 8 false front severity; note that 15th and 16th greens remain Robert Trent Jones’s; ranking context.
5. Geoff Shackelford, “Oakland Hills Then and Now: 7th Hole” (July 13, 2021): documents the seventh as the project’s largest single-hole transformation back to Ross.
6. USGA Records pages: U.S. Open host-site list confirming six Opens at Oakland Hills (1924, 1937, 1951, 1961, 1985, 1996); Host States & Clubs list summarizing the club’s USGA history (including the 1929 Women’s Amateur and the 2024 Junior Amateur).
7. USGA announcement (Mar. 22, 2022): future championships awarded to Oakland Hills (2024 U.S. Junior Amateur; 2029 U.S. Women’s Amateur; 2031, 2042 U.S. Women’s Opens; 2034, 2051 U.S. Opens; 2038 U.S. Girls’ Junior; 2047 U.S. Amateur).
8. USGA Women’s Amateur results page noting the 1929 championship at Oakland Hills (dates and winner).
9. Sports Illustrated Vault (1996) account of the 1951 work and its “Monster” legacy; plus contemporaneous USGA Green Section Record (1951) explaining the modernization’s accuracy/position-play goals.
10. Rees Jones, Inc. project page and reporting: notes on 2000s work (16 new tees, +~350 yards; narrowed fairways; relocated/added bunkers) for 2004 Ryder Cup and 2008 PGA.
11. Golf Digest course listing and rankings (America’s 100 Greatest, 2025–26: South at No. 20; long-term ranking history). GOLF Magazine U.S. Top 100 (2024–25: South at No. 20).
Uncertainties & disputed points:
• The oft-quoted line “The Lord intended this for a golf links” appears in later narratives but is not readily traceable to a surviving board minute or Ross letter; it should be regarded as an attributed remark that reflects period sentiment rather than a verbatim, primary-documented quote. europeantour.com
• Green provenance: Hanse’s team documented preservation of existing subgrades and only minor contour adjustments at Nos. 9 and 17, but two greens—15 and 16—remain Robert Trent Jones’s 1951 designs by choice; some summaries emphasize the subgrade continuity while others (e.g., The Fried Egg) emphasize the RTJ authorship of those two surfaces. Readers should distinguish between restored strategy (largely Ross) and putting-surface authorship (16 of 18 effectively Ross; 15 & 16 RTJ).
