PGA Championship 2026: The real story behind the complicated architecture of Aronimink

TL;DR

Aronimink Golf Club's course, designed by Donald Ross in 1926, features a complex architectural history marked by significant changes to its bunkering. Originally planned with fewer, larger bunkers, the final design included over 200 smaller bunkers, likely altered by a club member during construction.

Key points

Aronimink Golf Club was designed by Donald Ross in 1926.
The course opened in 1929.
Ross's original design included fewer, larger bunkers.
The final design featured over 200 smaller bunkers.
J.B. McGovern altered the bunkering during construction.

Mentioned in this story

Donald RossJ.B. McGovern

Aronimink Golf Club

Aronimink’s architectural history has always been a curious case.

The club hired Donald Ross to build its golf course when it relocated to its new Newtown Square property west of Philadelphia in 1926. Ross was at the height of his career. He was the profession’s busiest, most experienced architect with active projects across the U.S. Because he was so prolific, he leaned on associates in different regions—Walter Hatch, Walter Johnson, Frank Maples and others—to oversee the construction of his designs while he was not there.

Ross’ plans for Aronimink were explicit—his routing worked in an out of corners and used the site’s long slopes to build strategy in tandem with less than 80 hand-built bunkers cut into the terrain. He also left field notes—hole-by-hole instructions—for crews to reference when they were shaping.

The course opened in 1929, but during construction the bunkering changed dramatically. Ross’s regular-sized bunkers were built as clusters of two or three smaller bunkers with lower faces, raising the total number to over 200. Ron Prichard, who was the consulting architect at Aronimink from 1994 through the last 2000s, believes that Ross’s associate and foreman, J.B. McGovern, who was also a member at the club, made the bunkering alterations without Ross’ input.

ST_PGA26

Cluster bunkers were reconstructed by Gil Hanse's team to mirror aerial photos from the early days of Aronimink.

Scott Taetsch

Over time and several subsequent remodels of the course, the smaller clusters were eliminated or recombined into larger, more regular shapes. Prichard’s work consisted of taking this heavily altered design and reproducing the course according to the blueprints Ross drew and intended, even though that course was never originally built.

Then in 2015, Aronimink hired Gil Hanse and Jim Wagner to conduct another remodel. They went a different direction. Rather than follow Ross’ plans, Hanse and Wagner chose to reconstruct the course that was actually built on the site using photos from 1929. In the process they increased to total number of bunkers to, once again, over 200.