Oak Hill Country Club: West Course

The West Course at Oak Hill Country Club is the quieter sibling to the major-championship-hosting East, a Donald Ross routing opened in 1924 in Pittsford, New York, just outside Rochester. Shorter and more walkable than the East, the par-70 West shares the same rolling terrain and oak-studded setting that Ross shaped in the mid-1920s, and has served as both a member's course and tournament venue for a century.

The Oak Hill Country Club's West Course was designed by Donald Ross and opened in the mid-1920s as the second of two Ross layouts on the club's Pittsford, New York site. After a 1921 land exchange relocated the club from its original home near the Genesee River to a 355-acre tract in Pittsford, southeast of Rochester, Oak Hill's leadership engaged Ross to route both the East and West Courses on the expanded property. Ross laid out the East in 1924, with the course maturing in 1925, and members began full play at the new site in 1926, with the West coming into its own during the same period. Ross designed the East and West to complement one another. The routing originally allowed members to combine holes from both courses into different loops, with Ross anticipating that players might cross between the two. The local physician and civic figure Dr. John R. Williams cultivated and planted tens of thousands of oak trees among the fairways and roughs on what had previously been farmland, giving the club its name and eventual character. The East Course has carried Oak Hill's major-championship reputation, hosting three U.S. Opens (1956, 1968, 1989), three PGA Championships (1980, 2003, 2013, and 2023), a Ryder Cup (1995), a U.S. Amateur (1998), and a U.S. Senior PGA. The West has played a quieter role, serving primarily as the members' course and as host to regional and state amateur events. During the 1940s, the West Course hosted significant professional play. The Rochester Times-Union Open was played at Oak Hill in 1941 and 1942, drawing the top players of the era including Sam Snead, Walter Hagen, and Ben Hogan. The 1942 tournament was won by Hogan with a 72-hole total that included a record-setting opening 64. These events helped cement Oak Hill's reputation on the national golf scene.3 and a slope of 136. While extensive renovation work by Tom Fazio, George Fazio, Robert Trent Jones Sr., and most recently Andrew Green has reshaped portions of the East over the decades, the West has retained more of its original Ross character and has been a long-standing reference point for the club's architectural heritage.