When Apawamis engaged Donald Ross in 1918, the course already had two decades of evolution behind it—an 1899 Tom Bendelow layout later toughened by head professional Herbert Strong prior to the 1911 U.S. Amateur. Ross’s role began not as a wholesale re-routing but as a comprehensive evaluation and master plan, a drawing the club still displays in its Grill Room. His report came just after World War I; the club recorded that financial constraints delayed action on most recommendations.
In 1920, Apawamis hired English greenkeeper Peter Lees to execute improvements “in line with Ross’ recommendations.” The club’s archival history specifies several items traceable to Ross’s 1918 prescriptions: adding two ranks of bunkers beneath the elevated 4th green (today’s “Eleanor’s Teeth”), and shifting the 5th, 12th, 17th and 18th greens to their present positions.
Aerials and board minutes show that work continued through the late 1920s in a manner the club says “reflects Ross’s recommendations.” These changes included building a new par-4 8th (replacing an earlier short hole), moving the 9th green, extending the 10th, and relocating the 14th and 15th greens. Apawamis notes that no architect of record has been found for the late-1920s phase and suggests the on-site oversight likely fell to Robert White, who succeeded Lees as “Advisory Greensman” after 1923.
The club’s own course history lists Donald Ross again in 1930 among architects who altered the course. A separate statewide directory compiled by the New York State Golf Association characterizes his 1930 involvement at Apawamis as a “partial remodel” of three holes. The specific holes are not named in that directory, and the club’s narrative for the late 1920s/1930 period does not identify an architect of record for particular items—an uncertainty the club acknowledges. Together, those sources support a timeline of: 1918 master plan by Ross; 1920 works by Lees reflecting Ross; late-1920s changes aligning with the plan; and 1930 follow-up involvement by Ross of limited scope.
Unique Design Characteristics on the Ground
The clearest single artifact of Ross’s Apawamis prescriptions is the gauntlet of bunkers fronting the 4th green. The club’s history says two rows were added below this elevated target in 1920 “in line with Ross’ recommendations,” and the hole today is still defined by fourteen cross-bunkers—“Eleanor’s Teeth”—guarding a four-tiered surface. That is a rare, explicit example where the club ties a specific hazard scheme to Ross’s 1918 plan and then shows its survival today.
Several hole revisions that the club attributes to the late-1920s, “Ross-reflective” phase also survive in recognizable form. The present par-4 8th—created in place of an earlier short hole—asks for a tee ball across a central mound to a tilted, banked green; the 9th green was repositioned and today is approached past a cross-bunker left and the “great hazard” down the left, features the club emphasizes in its hole guide. The 10th was lengthened into a substantial par-5 that uses out-of-bounds on the right and a left-side water hazard to frame the lay-up; and the 14th and 15th greens were relocated into stronger natural sites, with the 15th specifically guarded by the course’s deepest bunker left of the green. While the construction authorship of those late-1920s changes is not documented, the club’s text ties their conception back to Ross’s 1918 guidance.
Beyond those programmatic changes, a few ground features display the course’s long continuity from the Ross/Lees period. The club’s aerial analysis notes that the course bore dozens of small “pot” bunkers in 1925, many of which were removed by 1940; prominent exceptions included the fronting field at the 4th and pot bunkers remaining around the 18th, which kept a Ross-era flavor at the finish. Today the 18th still plays to a multi-tiered, well-bunkered target after a blind drive over rising ground—an endgame the club’s hole guide highlights.
Several other holes show the course’s enduring, compact targets allied to elevation changes—qualities that matched Ross’s push for more exacting approach play here in 1918. The uphill par-3 12th (“Bunker Hill”) demands at least an extra club to a perched green with a deep front-right pit; and the diagonal access to the 7th green through a “gorge” tightens the preferred angle for the running approach. Although those particular green surfaces pre-date Ross and/or were refined by others, their present presentation sits within a routing and hazard program reshaped in the wake of Ross’s master plan.
Best surviving Ross-related examples. Among individual holes, the 4th (bunker field below an elevated target), the replacement 8th (created as a two-shotter per late-1920s works that reflect Ross), the extended 10th, and the relocated 14th and 15th greens are the clearest surviving embodiments of Ross’s 1918 intent as implemented on the property. The 18th’s pot-bunkered character at the green also persists from that interwar period.
Historical Significance in Ross’s Body of Work
Apawamis matters within Ross’s portfolio as a rare case where he supplied a master plan to a high-profile, already mature Met-Area course rather than designing afresh. His 1918 plan became the template for a decade of piecemeal but cumulative change, much of it executed by Lees and by the club itself, such that Ross’s influence here is best understood in the course’s mid-holes and approach defenses rather than in a new routing. That dynamic is well documented in the club’s archive, which repeatedly links the 1920 and late-1920s work to Ross’s plan.
Apawamis’s competitive résumé underscores the significance of those interwar refinements. The club had already hosted the 1911 U.S. Amateur on a Strong-hardened course; that final between Harold Hilton and Fred Herreshoff lasted a then-record 37 holes—the longest final then seen—marking the venue’s early national profile. Decades after the Ross-guided phase, Apawamis returned to the national stage for the 1970 U.S. Girls’ Junior, the 1978 Curtis Cup and the 2005 U.S. Senior Women’s Amateur, affirming the course’s sustained tournament credibility in the modern era.
Within the Met Area discourse on golden-age courses, Apawamis also sits at the intersection of multiple authors: Bendelow’s original, Strong’s early-1900s hardening (Strong himself served as head professional here), and Ross’s master-planning overlay. Tom Doak has argued that Strong’s regional influence has been under-credited in later retellings—a reminder that Apawamis’s architecture is layered and that Ross’s portion should be considered alongside that context.
As for reputation, the club preserves Ben Hogan’s line that Apawamis was “the toughest short golf course I have ever played,” a sentiment consistent with the compact greens and exacting angles that the club emphasizes today. (That quote is club-reported rather than sourced to a specific publication.)
Current Condition / Integrity
Apawamis today retains the Ross-driven ideas that the club implemented between 1920 and roughly 1930: the cross-bunkering and elevated target at the 4th; the conversion of the 8th into a par-4; the lengthened 10th; and the shifted greens at the 14th and 15th, plus earlier shifts at the 5th, 12th, 17th and 18th. The routing is still essentially the early Apawamis course, but with those Ross-influenced edits embedded. The club’s own historical study shows that many small pot bunkers evident in 1925 were removed by 1940 (the 4th and 18th being exceptions), so the present day’s sand scheme is far less pock-marked than in Ross’s era. apawamis.org
In the modern period, Apawamis undertook several architect-led campaigns. In 1977, Tom Fazio remodeled the course (the American Society of Golf Course Architects’ library lists the year but does not detail scope). From 2001–02, Gil Hanse executed a project the club explicitly characterizes “in certain respects, a restoration,” rebuilding bunkers and expanding fairways/tees; Hanse’s on-site presence is also documented by contemporaneous accounts. Most recently, Keith Foster (2017–22) expanded greens, widened fairways and renovated bunkers—changes that re-exposed angles and recaptured some original green-edge cupping areas. The club also lists Tom Marzolf (2014) as a project architect; the club’s public materials do not specify scope for that year. Together, these works left the course playing to 6,741 yards with a 73.4/146 rating/slope, while preserving the signature 4th-green bunker field and the late-1920s hole/green placements tied back to Ross’s 1918 plan.
What has been preserved vs. altered. Preserved: the 4th’s cross-bunker gauntlet and elevated target; the late-1920s conversions at 8, 9, 10, 14 and 15 that the club links to Ross’s plan; and the 18th’s multi-tiered, closely bunkered green character. Altered or lost: the broader fabric of small pot bunkers that dotted many fairways and were removed by mid-century; tree lines that tightened corridors during the postwar period (with more recent widening under Foster); and, through decades of routine agronomy, green perimeters that Foster and the club have been expanding back into former corners.
Integrity assessment specific to Ross. Because Ross’s contribution here was a master plan applied selectively to an existing course, “percent original Ross” is not a meaningful baseline. A more precise accounting is feature-based: the 4th’s bunkering and the hole/green adjustments at 8, 9, 10, 14 and 15 form the core of what remains on the ground that the club itself connects to Ross’s 1918 document and the follow-up works around 1920–30. Those elements are intact and in daily play.
Sources & Notes
1. “The Apawamis Club — Golf Course (history, architects list, yardage, hole-by-hole descriptions; ‘Eleanor’s Teeth’ on No. 4; Hogan quote).” The Apawamis Club official site.
2. “The Evolution of a Golf Course” (club archival article detailing 1918 Ross master plan; 1920 Lees works; late-1920s changes reflecting Ross; 1925/1940 aerials; likely oversight by Robert White). The Apawamis Club.
3. “Name Recognition,” Tom Doak, The Met Golfer (profile noting Herbert Strong’s tenure at Apawamis beginning in 1905 and his regional significance).
4. “Directory of New York State Courses by Architect,” NYSGA (entry shows “Apawamis Club — 1930 — 3 holes (PR)” under Donald Ross).
5. Golf Digest course profile for The Apawamis Club (notes 2001 Hanse restoration; 2017 Foster expansion of greens, fairway widening, bunker renovation).
6. GCSAA.tv video features from The Apawamis Club (superintendent Michael McCormick discussing reshaping bunkers and increasing green sizes in the recent redesign phase).
7. ASGCA Tom Fazio “Courses Remodeled by Name” (lists Apawamis, 1977).
8. USGA “U.S. Amateur Records” (records the 1911 final at Apawamis lasting 37 holes).
9. Club tournament history page (confirms hosting of the 1911 U.S. Amateur; 1970 U.S. Girls’ Junior; 1978 Curtis Cup; 2005 U.S. Senior Women’s Amateur). USGA Curtis Cup results corroborate the 1978 site.
Uncertainties & disputed points.
– 1930 Ross scope. The club’s general history lists Ross among “course architects” in 1930, while the NYSGA directory specifies “3 holes (PR).” The club’s deeper “Evolution” article, however, attributes the late-1920s physical works to an undocumented architect and suggests Robert White likely oversaw them after Lees’s death, with those works “reflecting Ross’s 1918 plan.” In other words, the existence of a Ross return in 1930 is well attested, but the exact holes and extent of hands-on construction remain undocumented in publicly available records.
– Attribution of specific hazards. The 4th-hole bunker field is explicitly described by the club as having been added in 1920 “in line with Ross’s recommendations,” executed under Lees; some secondary tellings loosely ascribe the bunkers directly “to Ross.” This directory treats them as Ross-prescribed and Lees-built, consistent with the club’s own archival text.