East Lake(Home of Tour Championship) in Atlanta, Georgia

[Steve_ Shaffer]

If there’s been a dominant theme in the world of golf course renovation the last 20 years, it’s the desire of a new generation of club members to hit the "reset" button on their historic courses and return to pre-World War II versions of their architecture. The venerable East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta, host of the annual Tour Championship and the venue Bobby Jones grew up playing, is the latest to reach into the past.   Immediately following the 2023 Tour Championship, East Lake will close to undergo its most significant remodel since 1994. Conducting the alteration will be Andrew Green, whose comprehensive work bringing back the Donald Ross aesthetic and playing character to Oak Hill Country Club’s East Course was on dramatic display earlier this year during the PGA Championship. If Oak Hill is precedent, East Lake will continue to be a formidable course for the world’s best players but will look little like it does now.


Read more:


https://www.golfdigest.com/story/east-lake-renovation-andrew-green


 

[Keith Williams]

Surprised nobody has commented on this yet.  I'd be interested to know to what esteem the early Ross version of East Lake was held.  I seem to recall hearing that back in the day the membership favored the NLE second course there.


Maybe some of our ATL members have some info (paging Bob Crosby) on what this will entail.


With this announcement, does leave AAC-Highlands, Bethpage and Torrey Pines as the only remaining intact high profile Rees remodels?

[Anthony_Nysse]

Surprised nobody has commented on this yet.  I'd be interested to know to what esteem the early Ross version of East Lake was held.  I seem to recall hearing that back in the day the membership favored the NLE second course there.


Maybe some of our ATL members have some info (paging Bob Crosby) on what this will entail.


With this announcement, does leave AAC-Highlands, Bethpage and Torrey Pines as the only remaining intact high profile Rees remodels?

Bellerive, Cog Hill

[Edward Glidewell]

Surprised nobody has commented on this yet.  I'd be interested to know to what esteem the early Ross version of East Lake was held.  I seem to recall hearing that back in the day the membership favored the NLE second course there.


Maybe some of our ATL members have some info (paging Bob Crosby) on what this will entail.


With this announcement, does leave AAC-Highlands, Bethpage and Torrey Pines as the only remaining intact high profile Rees remodels?

Well, it's not really new information -- we've known they were doing a renovation since last fall, and I think Andrew Green was announced as the architect early this year.


There is new information in that Golf Digest article (at least new to me), though, in terms of some of the specific changes. I knew they were moving the 9th green, e.g., but didn't know they were filling in the lake on 18 (and the driving range).


In general I expect the course will be much improved, and I'm looking forward to playing it next fall when it reopens.

[Ben Hollerbach]

In the article they mention they're going to use the 1949 aerial as the basis for the work, well here is that 1949 aerial with the current routing overlayed on top. Notice how many green sites and hole corridors are different. 


I would suspect that they're going to have to keep most of the current hole corridors and green sites, so it will be hard to say it's a restoration, but will focus their efforts on returning the look of the 1949 bunkering and green profiles. I have not heard if they have many reference photos from ground level, so I imagine Green will be creating the greens based on his past Ross experience.

I'm excited to see they will be rebuilding the strip bunker on 17, that was a feature that stood out to to me when looking at the aerial for the first time. Hopefully soon we'll learn more about Greens intentions.

[Wayne_Kozun]

How was East Lake viewed compared to Peachtree after that course was completed?  I heard a story that Bobby Jones got a bunch of guys together and said something like "Gentleman, East Lake is getting too crowded, I want you all to put up some money and we are going to build another golf course" which was Peachtree.

[Matt_Cohn]

In the article they mention they're going to use the 1949 aerial as the basis for the work, well here is that 1949 aerial with the current routing overlayed on top. Notice how many green sites and hole corridors are different. 

The golf course in this aerial looks kind of...rudimentary? Hard to tell about ground features from this kind of picture, of course. Maybe they're just using it for routing changes?

[BCrosby]

Ben -


The overlay is terrific. It looks like the right side of the aerial was cropped. It cuts out some greens and tees on the right side of the picture that would be interesting to see. Do you have an overlay for the full aerial?


Duncan's GD article gets a couple of things wrong. Ross did not "build" EL in 1913. The current course was routed by George Adair with help from H. H. Barker in 1913. We know that because Adair presented a rerouting of the old Bendelow course to the board of the Atlanta Athletic Club in late 1912 (see The American Golfer). The Adair routing is, essentially, the current routing of the course. Ross did a "sophisticated bunker plan" at both EL and nearby Druid Hills later in 1913. There is no record of Ross's bunker plan, photographic or otherwise. Nothing at the Tufts Archive on it.


If design attribution follows the person responsible for a course's routing, George Adair has been badly neglected. And not just with respect to EL. Adair was the father of golf in the SE. He promoted tournaments, chaperoned young Bobby and his son Perry on trips to tournaments, helped layout a number of courses in the SE (usually with the help of Barker and Stewart Maiden), was a friend of CBM, Travis and the Tufts, and a force at the Atlanta AC. An important, beloved figure Adair died in 1921 in early middle age and has been largely forgotten. (Someone who did not forget Adair was O.B. Keeler. But that's another story.)


Another minor correction to the GD piece: EL No. 2 was built by Ross in 1928. We have the Ross plans, newspaper accounts, etc. It was considered by everyone I have talked to who played No. 2 as the better of the two courses. Charlie Harrison, the best amateur (after Jones) from EL (who won club championships at EL into his 80's) loved the No. 2 course. No. 2 ceased to exist not in the 60's but in the mid 70's, though I would guess that its maintenance had fallen off by the time of its closure. A short nine hole course was built on a portion of the old No.2., finished in the early 2000's, as I recall.


I think Andrew Green and Chad Parker have the right take on EL. Their goal seems to be simply to make EL a better course and to play down suggestions that it is a Ross restoration. Any claim that it is a restoration has the insurmountable problem of defining what of Ross they want to restore at EL. About that virtually nothing is known.


A comment on the 1949 aerial. Note what looks like an old green with a fronting bunker to the right of and midway along the 17th fw. That might be the remnant of the old green when the 17th played as a long par 3. You can also see traces of the old double, summer/winter greens at several locations. Double greens were used as late as the mid-1930's, maybe longer.


Bob  [size=78%]                   [/size]

[Charlie Goerges]

It looks like the right side of the aerial was cropped. It cuts out some greens and tees on the right side of the picture that would be interesting to see. Do you have an overlay for the full aerial?

I think you just need to scroll right. Also, you can click or tap to zoom in more as well.

[BCrosby]

Got it. Thanks.

[Ben Hollerbach]

Another minor correction to the GD piece: EL No. 2 was built by Ross in 1928. We have the Ross plans, newspaper accounts, etc. It was considered by everyone I have talked to who played No. 2 as the better of the two courses. Charlie Harrison, the best amateur (after Jones) from EL (who won club championships at EL into his 80's) loved the No. 2 course. No. 2 ceased to exist not in the 60's but in the mid 70's, though I would guess that its maintenance had fallen off by the time of its closure. A short nine hole course was built on a portion of the old No.2., finished in the early 2000's, as I recall.
Bob 

The no.2 course is included in the 1949 aerial as well.



By the 90's forest had reclaimed half of the course and low income apartments were built on the other half. Around 1999-2001 the apartments were torn down and the 18 hole executive Charlie Yates course was built.  In early 2013 the back 9 was closed and a school was built on the property.

[Bret Lawrence]

Ben -


The overlay is terrific. It looks like the right side of the aerial was cropped. It cuts out some greens and tees on the right side of the picture that would be interesting to see. Do you have an overlay for the full aerial?


Duncan's GD article gets a couple of things wrong. Ross did not "build" EL in 1913. The current course was routed by George Adair with help from H. H. Barker in 1913. We know that because Adair presented a rerouting of the old Bendelow course to the board of the Atlanta Athletic Club in late 1912 (see The American Golfer). The Adair routing is, essentially, the current routing of the course. Ross did a "sophisticated bunker plan" at both EL and nearby Druid Hills later in 1913. There is no record of Ross's bunker plan, photographic or otherwise. Nothing at the Tufts Archive on it.


If design attribution follows the person responsible for a course's routing, George Adair has been badly neglected. And not just with respect to EL. Adair was the father of golf in the SE. He promoted tournaments, chaperoned young Bobby and his son Perry on trips to tournaments, helped layout a number of courses in the SE (usually with the help of Barker and Stewart Maiden), was a friend of CBM, Travis and the Tufts, and a force at the Atlanta AC. An important, beloved figure Adair died in 1921 in early middle age and has been largely forgotten. (Someone who did not forget Adair was O.B. Keeler. But that's another story.)


Another minor correction to the GD piece: EL No. 2 was built by Ross in 1928. We have the Ross plans, newspaper accounts, etc. It was considered by everyone I have talked to who played No. 2 as the better of the two courses. Charlie Harrison, the best amateur (after Jones) from EL (who won club championships at EL into his 80's) loved the No. 2 course. No. 2 ceased to exist not in the 60's but in the mid 70's, though I would guess that its maintenance had fallen off by the time of its closure. A short nine hole course was built on a portion of the old No.2., finished in the early 2000's, as I recall.


I think Andrew Green and Chad Parker have the right take on EL. Their goal seems to be simply to make EL a better course and to play down suggestions that it is a Ross restoration. Any claim that it is a restoration has the insurmountable problem of defining what of Ross they want to restore at EL. About that virtually nothing is known.


A comment on the 1949 aerial. Note what looks like an old green with a fronting bunker to the right of and midway along the 17th fw. That might be the remnant of the old green when the 17th played as a long par 3. You can also see traces of the old double, summer/winter greens at several locations. Double greens were used as late as the mid-1930's, maybe longer.


Bob  [size=78%]                   [/size]

Bob,


The double or dual greens appear to be maintained in this 1949 aerial.  Wouldn’t you think they are still in play in 1949?  The routing for the back looks very similar to what exists today (with a few holes lengthened).


Bret

[mike_beene]

Did the 2 course play from a different club house?

[BCrosby]

Bret - It's possible they were still using double greens in 1949. In aerials from the late 30's they are evident; less so in the 1949 aerials, but its possible. Interestingly, Athens CC (a fully documented Ross course 60 miles away) built in 1925/26 never had double greens.


Mike - There was a small building and parking lot near the first tee of the No. 2 course. From aerials the building looks fairly basic. The current clubhouse was always East Lake's clubhouse. (The original EL clubhouse burned down in 1926(?) and rebuilt in its current form.)


Bob     

[Matt_Cohn]

Not really apropos of the conversation, but what’s the etiquette with the driving range there? Is it just expected that you’ll hit a few into the water? Are you supposed to try to avoid it?

[Bret Lawrence]

Bret - It's possible they were still using double greens in 1949. In aerials from the late 30's they are evident; less so in the 1949 aerials, but its possible. Interestingly, Athens CC (a fully documented Ross course 60 miles away) built in 1925/26 never had double greens.


Mike - There was a small building and parking lot near the first tee of the No. 2 course. From aerials the building looks fairly basic. The current clubhouse was always East Lake's clubhouse. (The original EL clubhouse burned down in 1926(?) and rebuilt in its current form.)


Bob   

Bob, 


I would think the double greens would have been a luxury. Not every club can afford to maintain all of that grass. The thing that stands out to me in the aerial is the width of the hole corridors to encapsulate the side-by side greens.  How wide do you think the 12th and 13th fairways were?  As always, thanks for your detailed information on East Lake.


Bret

[Ben Hollerbach]

Not really apropos of the conversation, but what’s the etiquette with the driving range there? Is it just expected that you’ll hit a few into the water? Are you supposed to try to avoid it?

I don't remember any explicit signs, but I think its generally understood not to hit any balls in the water. It is about 100 yards to the first green across the pond.

How wide do you think the 12th and 13th fairways were? 

Based on the 1949 Aerial, the 12th fairway appears to be ~106 yards wide at the widest point and the 13th fairway ~90 yards wide.

[Edward Glidewell]

Not really apropos of the conversation, but what’s the etiquette with the driving range there? Is it just expected that you’ll hit a few into the water? Are you supposed to try to avoid it?

You're asked not to hit any balls into the water.


That won't be an issue after the renovation, though, since they're filling it in.

[BCrosby]

Bret says: "I would think the double greens would have been a luxury. Not every club can afford to maintain all of that grass."

That might have been part of the story. Athens CC was operated on a shoestring early on. I wonder, however, if there weren't other factors. EL had been open for almost two decades before Athens. My understanding is that the only southern turf available at the time (1907/08) would have been common Bermuda, a very coarse grass. Might EL gone to single greens after 419 became available? Wasn't that in the 1930s? I am not a turfhead, so thinking out loud.

[Bret Lawrence]

Bob,


I am not a turf head either, but the history of Turfgrass does interest me.


After a little research I discovered that 419 was developed in the 1930’s but it was primarily used as a forage grass at the time.  The USGA began experimenting with the grass in the mid-1940’s. 


Here is a website with a brief history of 419:


https://tritexgrass.com/tifway-419-bermuda-an-established-winner/


Here is a second article written by Dr. Glenn Burton in 1991.  This article gives more scientific details into the development of Bermuda grass at the Tifton turf farm.


https://gsrpdf.lib.msu.edu/?file=/1990s/1991/910512.pdf


Bret

[Ben Hollerbach]

Google Maps has an updated aerial of East Lake under construction from April, 2024. I've overlaid the 1949 routing in pink and the 1923 routing in green to help illustrate the changes to the course.

You can see how much of the new green shapes and bunkering mimics the 1949 course, but still playing through the modern corridors.

[Matt_Cohn]

Interesting. Is 8 going to be drivable, maybe at least sometimes?

[Ben Hollerbach]

Interesting. Is 8 going to be drivable, maybe at least sometimes?

That's a good question. If the very back tee is retained the hole will play ~385 yards, ~290 yards to the first bunker. So I would expect it will play as a lay up - wedge approach for many.

I would imagine they will sometimes play it from a shorter tee bringing it into the drivable range.