Oakland Hills Country Club - South

Jones’s work before the 1951 U.S. Open concentrated bunkers around landing areas and reduced the room available for approach shots. Ben Hogan won that championship on the course that became known as the Monster. Later changes by Rees Jones continued the emphasis on tightly guarded lines of play.¹

Gil Hanse and Jim Wagner worked from Ross drawings, historical aerial photographs and an unusually useful record: the programme for the 1929 U.S. Women’s Amateur. Its ground-level photographs showed every green before later alterations, giving the construction team detailed evidence of lost shapes and surrounding bunkers.¹

The greens were rebuilt with modern sand-based construction while laser surveys helped preserve their contours. Putting surfaces expanded, fairways widened and tree removal reopened views across the site. The work also replaced irrigation and rebuilt bunkers, joining historical recovery to the practical requirements of maintaining the course.¹

After the 2021 restoration, the South staged the match-play rounds of the 2024 U.S. Junior Amateur while the North shared stroke-play duties. That distinction matters: Oakland Hills’ two courses contributed to one championship in different ways.²