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    How Oak Hill Was Returned to Its Roots

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    Oak Hill Country Club, near Rochester, N.Y., has been a familiar stop for men’s professional golf for decades: Since 1956, it has hosted three U.S. Opens, three P.G.A. Championships and a Ryder Cup.But when the P.G.A. Championship returns to Oak Hill on Thursday for the first time since 2013, the East Course will be different than it was for some of the elite tournaments it has hosted. In recent years, the club brought in Andrew Green to interpret and restore some of Donald J. Ross’s original design from the 1920s.Green, who has also worked on overhauls at other major championship courses — Congressional Country Club, Inverness Club and Scioto Country Club — can sometimes be seen as “fairly radical,” as Jack Nicklaus, who grew up playing at Scioto and won the 1980 P.G.A. Championship at Oak Hill, put it recently.In an interview this spring, though, Green said he had regarded the Oak Hill project as an opportunity to reemphasize Ross’s approach, which includes unorthodox shapes for greens.“I took the most pride in being able to reestablish a few of the golf holes that had been lost to time,” said Green, who, to try to decipher the thinking of Ross, who died in 1948, studied his writings, pencil sketches and formalized drawings, as well as a selection of historical photographs.An archival map shows both the East and West courses at Oak Hill Country Club.Oak Hill Country ClubRoss’s influence at Oak Hill had faded over the decades, particularly with the work of the uncle-nephew duo George and Tom Fazio in the 1970s. Their changes, by Oak Hill’s own account, “created a more challenging layout for the several major championships that followed” but also promoted “significant criticism since they did not fit” in Ross’s original design. Hundreds of new and ultimately overgrown trees, the club also said, had shifted the course away from Ross’s vision.“As the evolution of the golf course had occurred, players and critics and the golf world had always felt there was a disconnect within the golf course itself,” Green said. “Really, the primary goal was to reinfuse Ross and make the entire course feel as if it had always been there.”No. 5: Little PoisonPar 3, 180 yardsNo. 5 emerges from a thicket of sand, rough and steep slopes. Evan Schiller, Oak Hill Country ClubThe par-70 course measures 7,394 yards, 231 yards more than the 2013 P.G.A. Championship but 151 yards less than how Augusta National Golf Club played during last month’s Masters Tournament. With the rough expected to be challenging and parts of Oak Hill strikingly narrow, even after many trees were removed, Green thinks the P.G.A. Championship could show “an interesting balance to see if the guys who can really bomb it and gouge it out have a leg up on everyone else, or if someone that really finesses it around the golf course will still be able to mount a good run.”An early glimpse at finesse will come at No. 5, where a long tee shot will all but stifle hopes for a birdie and could even make tapping in for par a formidable challenge. Positioned between the fourth hole and what was No. 15, the target emerges from a thicket of sand, rough and steep slopes. Green and his colleagues envisioned No. 5, where the green has two tiers, as a midiron test.Oak Hill Country Club“It will be a bit of a nervy shot, but aiming for the center of the green and trying to make a putt would be my suggestion,” Green said. “The whole vision for it was to play off of what Ross had on his original sixth hole.”No. 6: Double TroublePar 4, 503 yardsNo. 6 offers several hazards.Evan Schiller, Oak Hill Country ClubAfter an escape at No. 5, the hole Green believes is now the course’s most perilous awaits.Allen’s Creek runs alongside the right side from the start, forcing a player to choose between the risk of dropping his tee shot into the water — but perhaps also getting a better angle into the green if he avoids the hazard — or facing a longer second shot.“The green allows for a ball to be run into the approach, if they need to with a longer club or if they get in trouble off the tee,” said Green, whose restored course has water in play on six holes. “The green itself, front hole locations are fairly accessible, but the back right location is very demanding, very tough to get to. My guess is they’ll probably put the hole back there and move the tees forward on a certain day during the championship.”Oak Hill Country ClubPart of the challenge is that the creek does not simply run in a straight line off the tee, or even away from it. Instead, it ultimately moves diagonally across the approach and then up to the left side of the green.No. 6, Green said, was naturally the trickiest hole, given its placement and the parcel of earth on which it sits. With the fourth, sixth, seventh and eighth holes slotted in a relatively narrow sliver of earth, he assumed that Ross had “tried to find the most unique way to set those golf holes kind of side by side, and the result of that differentiation from hole to hole was what we got on the sixth.”Green added: “He had four golf holes that, on a very flat piece of ground, would be potentially very much the same way, but the way he utilized the ground and the creek made them all night-and-day different, and he was a genius at that. It was a very awkward piece of property that he had to work with — it wasn’t just a giant rectangle — and so the way he created the variety he did is just mind-blowing to me.”No. 13: Hill of FamePar 5, 623 yardsThe longest hole on the East Course travels uphill.Desiree Rios/The New York TimesThe longest hole, No. 13, could be a showcase for the equipment that is helping top players drive the ball farther than ever. The hole goes uphill, bringing players toward the clubhouse, with Allen’s Creek making an appearance at around the 325-yard mark.The evolution of equipment, Green predicted, will entice top players to hit the ball over the creek, which has been a relatively rare occurrence through Oak Hill’s history.“We added a new tee, but I still think the golf course at times will be set up where players would be tempted to play over that and get home in two,” Green said.Water is not a threat beyond the creek, but the vicinity of the newly reshaped green has two of Oak Hill’s 78 bunkers.No. 15: The PlateauPar 3, 155 yardsIf the tournament moves to a playoff, No. 15 will be a part of it.Evan Schiller, Oak Hill Country ClubWhen Jason Dufner won the 2013 P.G.A. Championship at Oak Hill, the 15th hole included a man-made pond stationed menacingly near the putting surface and a rock wall.“It was a very dramatic shot for major championship golf and TV,” Green said, “but it wasn’t very good for member play, and it didn’t represent anything Ross would have done.”So the pond is gone. Missing left will send a ball into a bunker that guards the left side. Missing right will have the ball moving away from the target in short grass, forcing a player to make a delicate shot onto the skinniest portion of the green, which is narrow left to right and deep front to back — maybe, Green said, a club-and-a-half difference, front-to-back.Oak Hill Country Club“It will be a very demanding shot in order to both control distance and spin to get close to the hole locations,” Green said.If the tournament moves to a playoff, No. 15 will be a part of it, along with the 14th and 18th holes.No. 18: Goin’ HomePar 4, 497 yardsThe green on No. 18 sits on the edge of a steep hill.Evan Schiller, Oak Hill Country ClubEyes always turn toward the 18th hole at any major championship. For Green, it was the one he fretted over most.“Unfortunately, that green really kind of stuck out a little bit in its shape as being very modern and out of character with the others,” Green said.Now the green, which sits on the edge of a steep hill that a player should look to carry with a second shot, has been extended on the right side and made deeper. The left side is shallower, front to back, and there are effectively three distinct surfaces within the green to place the hole.Oak Hill Country Club“Hitting a good drive is critical — absolutely critical,” Green said of the hole, where the fairway width can be as tight as 20 yards. “There are some very deep bunkers down the right-hand side that will make it very difficult to get home.”A player who successfully hits from the fairway to get his ball onto the zone of the green where the hole is will have a shot at a birdie. Otherwise, Green said, “it will be quite a dramatic putt to make that three.” More

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      With the PGA Championship’s Move to Spring, a Club Scrambled to Get Ready

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      The event, long played in the summer, is being held near Rochester, N.Y., known for its harsh winters. The Oak Hill Country Club had to start early to prepare.Chilly raindrops were falling early this May when Jeff Corcoran walked Oak Hill Country Club’s East Course in Pittsford, N.Y., near Rochester. Corcoran, Oak Hill’s manager of golf courses and grounds for about the last 20 years, was cautiously confident in its lustrous condition.An unusually warm Western New York winter — only 50 inches of snow fell in the Rochester area instead of what is usually around 100 — was fortuitous for Oak Hill. The course preparations were ahead of schedule to host the 105th P.G.A. Championship, which runs from Thursday to Sunday.Once called “Glory’s Last Shot,” the championship, held in August, went from afterthought, as the fourth and final major of the year, to the second spot when golf moved the tournament to May in 2019.The move was prompted after golf returned to the Olympics in 2016 in Rio de Janeiro, creating a conflict with the P.G.A. Championship. That forced the P.G.A. of America to move the tournament to July. Officials didn’t want to have to adjust the schedule every four years for the Olympics, so they decided on a permanent date in May.There were other advantages for the sport, too. By moving the P.G.A. Championship to May, the FedEx Cup Playoffs could end in August to avoid competing against the juggernaut of the N.F.L.The P.G.A. Championship’s move didn’t seem like much of a gamble when the other host sites were in the South. But this year’s northern venue — its signature oak trees have not quite bloomed in full — calls attention to the calendar switch. The extreme preparations Oak Hill and the P.G.A. of America, which oversees the event, took to mitigate the area’s notoriously harsh winters and late springs offer a master class in course management.Whether the weather cooperates is out of their control.Justin Thomas on the eighth tee during practice on Monday at Oak Hill Country Club.Andy Lyons/Getty Images“Mother Nature rules all,” Corcoran said. “She’s undefeated. If she decides there’s going to be five inches of snow, there will be five inches of snow. Or she could decide it’s going to be 70.”This will be the earliest of any of the 13 major men’s golf events held at Oak Hill, including three previous P.G.A. Championships. The club was picked to host the 2023 event eight years ago and learned of the impending May move in 2017. They found a way to make the date work.Golf officials still agree that despite the weather worries, moving to second place in the season has improved the event’s visibility coming after the most-watched golf tournament in the world, the Masters. It also eliminated what had been a two-month gap from the Masters to the United States Open.“It gave a nice progression to have a major event every month,” said Kerry Haigh, chief championships officer of the P.G.A. of America.Consider that playing in the beach days of August prompted officials to invent catchy marketing slogans to make “a problem seem like an opportunity,” Seth Waugh, the chief executive of the P.G.A. of America, said in an interview.“I think we have a better audience,” he said. “I think we have a better story to tell. And I think we’re more front and center.”He can thank the behind-the-scenes work for that. For the major championships, golf organizers usually erect infrastructure at local clubs — stands and corporate tents — three months in advance. In Pittsford, a suburb about eight miles southeast of Rochester, however, the ground is usually frozen in February.According to Bryan Karns, the championship director for the 2023 P.G.A. at Oak Hill, the crews put beams into the ground by November, building the floors and steel walls of the tents six feet high to withstand the worst snowfall.The course closed to members in October. By then, Corcoran had directed the necessary agronomy practices, including aerification, treating the greens with a sand mixture and putting down chemical applications for snowmold.Memories of previously chilly May tournaments at Oak Hill contribute to the anxiety. The Senior P.G.A. Championships there in 2008 and 2019 — held a few days later in May — were marked by rain and gusty winds, which made the thick rough even more snarling. In 2008, there were frost delays in the practice rounds and sleet in the first round, sending some of the seniors packing. Jay Haas won with 7-over-par; there were just a total of 12 rounds of under-par golf that week.“It was definitely a cold week; the weather was challenging, and the scores sort of reflected it,” Haigh said.A lot has changed at Oak Hill since then. Immediately after the Senior P.G.A. Championship in 2019, the course underwent a redesign by the architect Andrew Green. Corcoran called it a “sympathetic restoration” to the original 1926 Donald Ross design.Green removed hundreds of overhanging oak trees, making more shots available for golfers to play from the rough, and improving the sightlines for spectators. Now the club’s giant American flag on the right side of the 13th green will be visible from most of the front nine.Green redesigned three holes that didn’t seem to fit the Ross mold. He removed one altogether — the par-3 sixth that was the scene of four holes in one in the second round of the 1989 U.S. Open. That’s now a par 4, combined with the former fifth hole. Green built a new par-3 fifth. By restoring the greens to their original size, Oak Hill has been able to increase and add hole locations, giving professionals a new golf course.“Our aim is that it’s tough and challenging and fair,” Haigh said. “It puts a premium on driving and hitting the fairway.”Those fairways will be sparkling, even if the trees lining them might not be as lush. “I’m not in control of that,” Corcoran said. “But they don’t play the major championship from the tops of trees, do they?” More

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      The Importance of Oak Hill to Curtis Strange

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      He captured the United States Open there in 1989, becoming the first player in decades to win consecutive Opens.In June 1989, Curtis Strange made history at Oak Hill Country Club near Rochester, N. Y., the site of the P.G.A. Championship, which starts on Thursday.Trailing Tom Kite by three strokes with one round to go, Strange shot an even-par 70 to become the first player since Ben Hogan in 1951 to win back-to-back United States Opens. Strange had captured the 1988 Open by four shots over Nick Faldo in an 18-hole playoff.“Move over, Ben,” Strange said after the final round in 1989. It was his 17th and final tour victory.Strange, 68, reflected recently on his week at Oak Hill and what the top players in the world will likely encounter in this second major of the season.The following conversation has been edited and condensed.What was your mind-set going into the final round?I had everything to gain and nothing to lose. To go out and shoot a solid round of golf and hopefully some putts would fall, and I would shoot one or two under par. That was not a big ask for me. The one big memory was when I got word that [Kite] had made a triple at five. That’s when the adrenaline ran through my body.How did you find out about his triple bogey?I was walking to the eighth tee, the seventh tee maybe. I heard rumors. I asked somebody in the crowd, ‘Is it true?’ They said yes. It got me one back or something at the time.The line, ‘Move over, Ben,’ was that totally spontaneous?Totally spontaneous, made with all due respect for Mr. Hogan. Going into the week, I didn’t know who the last back-to-back champion was.You really didn’t know?When I led after two rounds, I read in the paper the last guy was Ben Hogan.Did you hear from Hogan after your win?No, I didn’t. I wasn’t expecting anything, but I think I was maybe just a little bit disappointed because I had such admiration for him. And for all those guys who paved the way for us. I still admire the guy like I did before.Curtis Strange lining up his putt as his caddie looks on at the 1989 U.S. Open. After his win, he said, “Move over, Ben,” referring to the last golfer to capture two consecutive U.S. Open wins.Phil Sheldon/Popperfoto, via Getty ImagesDid you imagine the Open would be your last victory?Not for a long, long time. I had three or four major chances [to win] and got a bit unlucky.Do you place one Open victory over another?The U.S. Open is the U.S. Open. I don’t think you can.What will be the challenges for these guys at Oak Hill?A lot of it is determined by how they decide to set up the golf course, how much rough and how narrow the fairways. There are only two par 5s, and they’re both very long. Par 5s normally are considered catch-up holes where you can make a birdie. Not so much at Oak Hill. They have [two] short par 4s on the back side where you could catch up.They will set it up differently for a P.G.A. than for an Open, right?Last year at Tulsa (the site of the 2022 tournament), it was pretty deep rough. Kerry Haigh, who has done a marvelous job in the P.G.A.; I’m sure he’ll do another one. All depends on how he wants to set it up. He’s always let the players play a little bit.Does the P.G.A., as a major championship, get enough respect?I think they do now with the May date. The August date was late in the year for the viewership and the players. The May date was a home run for them.With your dad having been a club pro, was it especially disappointing that you never won a P.G.A.?It was always at the very top of my list because of that. It’s the P.G.A. of America [an organization of golf professionals].In the 1989 P.G.A., when you tied for second, what do you remember?It’s the one Payne Stewart won, but Mike Reid should have won. I played very, very well on Sunday and didn’t putt as well as I needed to putt to win and had a chance on the last hole. I had a good opportunity. More