Starting today, GCA’ers in the U.S. have a great opportunity to see A.W. Tillinghast’s Lakewood Country Club in all its HD glory. Lakewood — in the Cleveland (OH) suburb of Westlake — is certainly one of Tilly’s lesser known tracks, but one worthy of analysis.
The course is a par 71 (36-35) with only one par 5 on the back nine. The course features an extremely tight front nine (a little more on that later) and aggressively sloped greens. It should play at around 7,000 yards for the tournament, so I expect it to be a good test
In the mid-2000s, a planned redesign and an unplanned storm resulted in some substantial improvements to the course. Architect Steven Kay restored a number of key course features, including the Great Hazard on the par-5 sixth hole; the storm took out more than a few of the trees that have unfortunately encroached on the course over the past 90 years.
Despite the changes, Lakewood remains uncomfortably tight, especially for a long and sometimes wild driver of the ball like myself. (One of the caddies for the upcoming Web.com event told his player to sleep with his 2 iron:
http://bit.ly/1tKREbD). I rarely pull driver from the bag until I get to the aforementioned sixth, only to put it back again at the short, dogleg seventh. On the back nine, the fair ays are more forgiving, allowing for more of the strategic play that I am sure Tilly had in mind when he designed the course.
Once the tournament has passed and the course has a chance to return to normalcy, I will post a photo tour. In the meantime, watch the coverage (6:30 p.m. Thu/Fri and 7 p.m. Sat/Sun on Golf Channel) and post any questions, which I ultimately will answer with first-hand research and images.
Now if I just had my GCA shirt to wear so you could look for me on TV…