Monroe Golf Club originated from a 1922 search for a new site by members of the former Genundewah Golf Club. After evaluating multiple properties in Rochester’s eastern suburbs, the founders selected a 214-acre tract in Pittsford and—following an introduction by member Irving W. Robeson—engaged Donald Ross to inspect the land. The club’s history page records that in December 1923 Ross was commissioned to “design and construct the course,” working with 150 acres and a fee arrangement of $5,500 for design and an estimated $50,000 for construction, roughly $3,000 per hole at the time. Play formally began on July 4, 1924.
Contemporaneous materials linked by the Monroe Invitational also note that Ross “designed and supervised the construction” in 1923, with the opening the following July, placing the project at the midpoint of his northern work calendar. The course was routed across sandy glacial deposits that continue to define the site’s fast-draining, firm playing conditions. There is no publicly accessible club record of Ross returning for a subsequent building phase; modern accounts occasionally allude to a later advisory visit, but those claims rely on scattered newspaper notices that require independent verification (see “Uncertainties”).
Unique Design Characteristics
Monroe’s most consistent architectural thread is the green-to-bunker relationship and the way the terrain is used to complicate recoveries. On the long par-3 6th, an uphill target ringed by deep sand—including a notably steep back bunker—penalizes shots that fail to carry fully onto the surface. At the petite 8th, five closely set bunkers and a restored left chipping hollow compress the available landing area and make distance control paramount. The 7th green is terraced laterally, narrowing the effective target to a ~20-foot shelf when the hole location is right, while two bunkers cut 12 feet below grade on that side enforce the angle. The home hole’s two-tier, 100-plus-foot green contains a diagonal swale that divides sections and creates a final test of distance control, especially after the uphill approach into prevailing wind.
The par-4 4th offers a classic Monroe reveal of Ross’s siting sensibilities: a punch-bowl green defended by a cross-bunker at the front and a tight right bunker, with approach play complicated by the fairway’s large target bunkers some 300 yards off the tee. The two half-par holes, 3 and 14, toggle between par-4 and par-5 in member and tournament use; in both cases lengthening and bunker work in the modern era preserved their strategic interest while allowing flexibility in setup. The 13th’s steeply rising approach and shaved run-offs—where balls that land short can roll back 20–30 yards—provide the purest single-shot examination and have been a long-standing scoring fulcrum in the Monroe Invitational. Among today’s clearest surviving Ross expressions are the 7th and 8th for their scale and green complexes, and the 18th for its swale-bisected putting surface—features documented by the club and repeatedly singled out in competitive play.
Historical Significance
Within Ross’s New York portfolio, Monroe is notable for the clarity of its 1923–24 build record and for its consistent tournament use almost from the club’s early decades. Since 1937 the Monroe Invitational has drawn a national amateur field; a who’s-who of modern professionals played it as amateurs, and the event’s long run at Monroe has provided a continuous record against which design alterations can be judged. In 2014 the club hosted the LPGA Championship (then Wegmans LPGA), configuring the course as a par-72 at 6,717 yards; Inbee Park won in a playoff, a major-week spotlight that validated both the course’s infrastructure and its ability to scale to elite-women’s championship golf without altering the essential character of its corridors. Ranking outlets have regularly included Monroe among the state’s best and the nation’s classic courses, with Golfweek placing it on its “Top 100 Classic Courses” list and Top100GolfCourses noting the 2008 restoration’s role in sharpening the presentation. A frequently repeated local note—reported by Top100GolfCourses—is that a teenage Robert Trent Jones worked on the construction crew, a reminder of Rochester’s intertwined golf culture in the 1920s.
Current Condition / Integrity
Monroe’s modern trajectory has emphasized restoration rather than redesign. A 2007–08 program restored original bunkers and expanded greens back toward their historic perimeters while undertaking significant tree work to recover width and agronomy—an approach consistent with the club’s stated aim of preserving Ross’s intent. Multiple independent summaries and the club’s own hole narratives attribute the 2008 bunker work and associated restoration to consulting architect Gil Hanse; the club’s pages, while not naming an architect globally, repeatedly tie specific bunkers and chipping areas to the 2008 project. The 11th green is a documented exception: it was redesigned by Brian Silva in 1994, a targeted alteration that the club continues to note in its hole description.
Specific, hole-level evidence of the restoration is visible in the club’s current descriptions: a deep fairway bunker added right on #1; a left-side pot bunker inserted at #2 around 270 yards; the left greenside bunker at #3 split and the right greenside bunker moved closer and deepened; the par-3 6th’s back bunker reconstructed; a restored chipping area left of #8; the par-5 9th extended to roughly 600 yards; a narrowed, waist-high-bunkered entry at #10; “Smitty’s Moguls” and a new right-side fairway bunker tightening the drive at #12; the par-4/5 14th’s fronting rise maintained to protect the green; a new pot bunker on #15; an enlarged, deepened left bunker at #17; and a new pot bunker right plus a two-tier, swale-bisected target on #18. Cumulatively, these edits have tended to reinforce the course’s original green-site testing without changing the routing or the holes’ essential identities.
In terms of present-day yardage and par, the official club scorecard shows a back-tee total of 6,971 yards in the par-70 member configuration, with holes 3 and 14 available as par fives for a par-72 setup—precisely how the 2014 LPGA set the course. The club’s “Our Story” page further anchors the historical timeline and commissioning details, while the Monroe Invitational’s materials confirm Ross’s supervision during construction in 1923 and the July 1924 opening. Where the literature is thinnest is on any later Ross presence on site; absent club minutes or Tufts Archives correspondence, conclusions beyond the 1923–24 build should be treated as provisional.
Sources & Notes
Monroe Golf Club, “Our Story” (club history, commissioning details, site selection, opening date). https://www.monroegolfclub.com/our-story.
Monroe Golf Club, “Golf” hole-by-hole pages (specific features; 1994 Silva redesign at #11; 2008 project references; hole-level modifications).
GCSAA, 2014 Wegmans LPGA Championship Tournament Fact Sheet (site geology; 2007–08 restoration/greens and bunker restoration; tree program). (PDF)
LPGA / Wikipedia summary, 2014 LPGA Championship (major venue, setup of 6,717 yards/par 72; winner).
Rochester Democrat & Chronicle, event coverage and at-a-glance information (local confirmation of 2014 venue and major-week logistics).
Monroe Invitational (official site), “Course” and Ross article “Monroe Golf Club—A Donald Ross Classic” (Ross’s 1923 on-site supervision; July 1924 opening; continuity of venue for the Invitational).
Top100GolfCourses, “Monroe | United States” (overview; notes on 2008 Hanse bunker program; historical note on a teenage Robert Trent Jones assisting during construction—treated here as a secondary report).
Golf Digest, Course profile—Monroe Golf Club (NY) (summary mention of “bunker renovations from Gil Hanse in 2008”).
Uncertainties / Items Requiring Primary Verification
Possible Ross return visit (1927). Various enthusiasts’ compilations reference period newspaper clippings suggesting Ross “returned to offer suggestions” several years after opening. These are not cited in official club materials.
Attribution and scope of 2008 work. The club’s hole pages document extensive “2008” bunker/chipping-area changes but do not name the architect; multiple secondary sources attribute this work to Gil Hanse.