Miami Valley Golf Club engaged Donald Ross during 1918–1919 at the behest of Walter and Mrs. Kidder, who assembled charter members and deeded the land for a recreation center with golf as its core use. Club history records that Ross initially declined due to workload, visited at the Kidders’ insistence, and sketched the course first on a blackboard before translating it to paper; the club dates its formal opening to June 3, 1919. These accounts establish Ross’s authorship and the 1919 opening but rely on internal club recollection rather than published correspondence or plan sets.
The setting benefited from professional landscape planning contemporaneous with the course work. The Olmsted Brothers prepared a site plan guiding the club’s entrance, clubhouse siting, and a picnic grove to frame a park-like approach to the course; an Olmsted grading plan for the clubhouse vicinity survives in the firm’s archives. This coordination helps explain the seamless arrival sequence and the relationship of the 9th and 18th to the clubhouse today.
Primary documentation confirming any subsequent Ross visit or redesign at Miami Valley has not surfaced in readily accessible sources. Local golf-association archives preserve course “layout” depictions from 1919, 1934, and 1955 that evidence iterative changes, but they do not attribute the 1930s or 1950s adjustments to Ross or specify their scope. Given Ross’s death in 1948, any 1955 alterations were necessarily by others.
Unique Design Characteristics
Contemporary observers consistently highlight the course’s angled hazards. At Miami Valley, Ross’s diagonal cross-bunkering still defines the landing zones at No. 9 and No. 18, creating risk-reward tee shots back toward the clubhouse. On No. 15, a par five, a stream is used similarly to influence angle and length of the preferred approach. These enumerated features—specific to Miami Valley—stand out as the clearest surviving examples of Ross’s strategic intent on the property.
The routing remains compact and walkable, returning to the clubhouse at the turn and finish, with corridors that allow these cross-bunkers to play diagonally rather than perpendicularly. The presence of bent-grass greens in subtly elevated positions at several holes enhances this diagonal hazard scheme by rewarding precise ground approaches rather than only aerial carries—an effect that members still experience today.
Historical Significance
Within Ross’s Ohio work, Miami Valley is significant as a 1919 commission that soon hosted elite competition. The club served as venue for the 1931 Western Open, then one of the game’s premier American tournaments, and for the 1957 PGA Championship, the last PGA contested under match play, won by Lionel Hebert over Dow Finsterwald (2 & 1). The 1957 result, and the event’s status as the final match-play PGA, ensured Miami Valley an enduring national profile in championship golf.
Regional sources also credit Miami Valley with hosting state-level championships in later decades, including the 1996 Ohio Amateur, underscoring the course’s ongoing suitability for top competition long after its opening. Period press and PGA retrospective features reinforce the 1957 Championship’s stature and the club’s place in PGA history.
Miami Valley’s landscape planning lineage adds a second layer of significance: collaboration between a leading American landscape firm and a leading golf architect at a single club property. The Olmsted Brothers’ role in approach and clubhouse environs, combined with Ross’s course, supports the site’s listing on the National Register of Historic Places (2015) and explains the integrated character of arrival, clubhouse terrace views, and finishing holes seen today.
Current Condition / Integrity
The club advertises the course as a 6,795-yard, par-71 Ross design with a full complement of practice facilities. This confirms the property’s continued use as a private, competition-minded venue. The corridors and the strategic diagonal bunkering at 9 and 18 remain referenced by contemporary reviewers as defining elements, suggesting meaningful survival of Ross’s strategy even as agronomy and maintenance standards evolved.
Evidence of large-scale “Ross restoration” (e.g., wholesale bunker re-building to historic lines, green-expansion to original perimeters) is not documented in accessible public sources. Nor are there published credits to a particular modern architect for a comprehensive renovation of Miami Valley akin to projects seen at other Ohio Ross venues. The club’s NRHP status and its own historical narrative indicate continuity of use, clubhouse enlargement (notably a 1930 facility), and periodic updates rather than a single transformative redesign.
Uncertainty:
Key dates are well attested—1919 opening; 1931 Western Open; 1957 PGA Championship—yet several points require verification from primary materials. These include: the precise sequence of Ross’s fieldwork (survey vs. construction oversight), whether Ross made any post-opening site visits that resulted in built changes, and authorship of the 1934/1955 layout revisions found in local archives. The club’s internal account of Ross’s blackboard sketch is valuable context but would benefit from corroboration in minutes, letters, or plan annotations. Without those, the safest conclusion is that Miami Valley is a 1919 Ross original with later, not-yet-attributed adjustments—while the conspicuous diagonal bunkering on 9 and 18 and the hazard scheme on 15 remain the clearest surviving expressions of his work on site.
Sources & Notes
Miami Valley Golf Club – Golf page. “The Golf Course… Par 71… Yardage 6,795; practice facilities.” Accessed 2025.
Miami Valley Golf Club – “About Us.” Club historical narrative (Kidders, Ross engagement, 1919 opening; clubhouse chronology).
National Park Service – “Olmsted in Ohio & Kentucky: Miami Valley Golf Club.” Outlines Olmsted Brothers’ contributions to entrance, clubhouse siting, picnic grove; notes 1919 opening and park-like approach.
Olmsted Archives (Flickr) – “Miami Valley Golf Club, grading plan for clubhouse vicinity.” Visual documentation of Olmsted Brothers plan sheet.
Top100GolfCourses.com – “Miami Valley.” Describes present-day diagonal/cross-bunkering affecting Nos. 9 and 18, and stream influence on No. 15. Secondary but specific to holes.
PGA of America – feature retrospectives. Confirms 1957 PGA Championship at Miami Valley and match-play context (last match-play PGA; Hebert def. Finsterwald 2&1).
Ohio Golf Association – “On This Day: Miami Valley opens its doors.” Notes 1919 opening ceremonies, par 71 / 6,795 yds contemporary figure; later Ohio Amateur (1996) among events.
Miami Valley Golf Club – “Tournaments” page. Confirms club-recorded hosting of 1931 Western Open and other events.
Miami Valley Golf – historical archive index (“Layouts 1919 / 1934 / 1955”). Establishes that multiple plan iterations exist but without explicit authorship given.