The Monster is ready for the return to its championship past.
Oakland Hills Country Club is in tournament condition as it prepares to host the U.S. Junior Amateur golf tournament July 22-27. It will be the first USGA tournament at the course since the 108-year-old Bloomfield Township track was renovated by architects Gil Hanse and Jim Wagner in 2021.
The U.S. Junior Am will be the first of eight national USGA tournaments hosted at Oakland Hills between now and 2051, including four U.S. Opens (two men’s in 2034 and 2051 and two women’s in 2031 and 2042), and first since the 2016 U.S. Amateur.
“These championships are a key part of who we are and over the past several years we have worked intentionally with the USGA to strengthen our partnership and bring these coveted events back to Oakland Hills,” Oakland Hills general manager Matt Dossey said.
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Next month, 264 of the best golfers in the world under the age of 19 will try to tackle the Donald Ross-designed course that received a facelift, removing hundreds of trees throughout the South Course while making other changes. The tournament will be played throughout the week, including two rounds of stroke play on both the North and Couth courses.
“There will be nonstop sunrise to sunset action on both courses those days,” Junior Amateur chairman and former Oakland Hills president Jeff Judge said.
The field then gets cut to the top 64, who will duke it out in match play on the South Course for the championship.
The champion, who will receive an exemption into next year’s U.S. Open field, will be crowned on the 18th green underneath the storied clubhouse that is currently being redone after it burned down in 2022.
“The steelwork is nearly complete and the frame will provide a silhouette of the new clubhouse for all to see when they are here in July,” Judge said.
The field features 78 players who received exemptions through World Amateur golf rankings — such as Miles Russell (who is also playing in the Rocket Mortgage Classic), Chris Kim, Rayan Ahmed, Blades Brown, Joshua Bai and more — plus nearly 200 players who qualified or will qualify in tournaments hosted throughout the country in May and June.
The tournament is free to attend, there are no tickets, and a shuttle to the course will be provided from Bloomfield Hills High School. The tournament will be largely open-access, allowing fans to walk the course alongside players and experience the renovations themselves.
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“We invite anyone who wants to play or watch golf to visit next month and be a part of this historic championship and see the restored South Course up close,” Judge said.
The championship match play rounds will be played on the par-70 South Course measuring over 7,300 yards long. The manicured fairway produces tight lies and are lined with rough that’ll grab and twist a club. That’s without even mentioning the cavernous bunkers on nearly every hole.
“We brought back the scale of the property,” Cuffare said. “You’re looking at over 200,000 square feet of bunkers. When you think about that, it’s a sea of sand and you’re trying to manipulate corridors. And with the tree removal, we’re seeing 5-10 mph wind which isn’t that great, but can really affect the golf ball.”
The main undertaking in the renovation of the course was removing trees, described as a natural evolution of the land which mimics Ross’ initial design. The goal was to create better sight lines throughout the course and between holes, to induce more strategy in how you have to attack each shot and to let the greens sit in the sun.
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“It was a way to open everything up and see a beautiful property instead of a bunch of individual holes,” Oakland Hills golf pro Steve Brady said. “That was the plan and that was the design originally.”
The tournament atmosphere is another expected benefit of the change, Brady said, because competitors will be able to watch others play different holes from a tee box, such as the No. 12 tee which overlooks Nos. 8, 11 and 16. Each green is visible from the tee box, and vice versa, allowing players to keep up with what others are doing around them.
“This is what you get,” Cuffare said of the renovations while highlighting Ross’ original work. “It is a cathedral of championship golf.”
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Oakland Hills Country Club ready for U.S. Junior Amateur in July
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