Aronimink Golf Club undergoes a sympathetic restoration ahead of the PGA Championship, honoring the legacy of its original designer, Donald Ross. Architect Gil Hanse emphasizes the importance of precision in the course's design.
Key points
Aronimink Golf Club is undergoing a sympathetic restoration.
The restoration honors Donald Ross's original design.
Gil Hanse is the architect behind the restoration.
The course is known for its challenging greens.
Aronimink Golf Club is located in Newtown Square, Pennsylvania.
Mentioned in this story
Donald RossGil HanseNewtown Square, Pennsylvania
Aronimink Golf Club
NEWTOWN SQUARE, Pa. â Golf course architect Gil Hanse doesnât claim to be an expert on Donald Ross, the famed Scottish-born builder of courses credited with building some of Americaâs most famous courses, including Pinehurst No. 2. Ross held a special place in his heart for Aronimink Golf Club, where two decades after laying out the course on rugged farmland and creating his classic greens that reject anything less than a precise shot, Ross returned and couldnât help stick out his chest and boast of the final product.
âI intended to make this my masterpiece, but not until today did I realize that I built it better than I knew,â he said.
The 18th hole and clubhoues at the Aronimink Golf Club in Newtown Square, Pennsylvania.
The first hole at the Aronimink Golf Club in Newtown Square, Pennsylvania.
The seventh hole at the Aronimink Golf Club in Newtown Square, Pennsylvania.
The seventh hole at the Aronimink Golf Club in Newtown Square, Pennsylvania.
Q&A
What is the significance of Aronimink Golf Club's restoration for the PGA Championship?
The restoration aims to honor Donald Ross's original design while enhancing the course's challenge and aesthetic appeal for the PGA Championship.
Who was Donald Ross and what is his connection to Aronimink Golf Club?
Donald Ross was a renowned golf course architect credited with designing many famous courses, including Aronimink, which he considered his masterpiece.
What changes were made to Aronimink Golf Club during its restoration?
The restoration focused on preserving the classic greens and layout designed by Ross, ensuring that the course maintains its historical integrity while improving playability.
Where is Aronimink Golf Club located?
Aronimink Golf Club is located in Newtown Square, Pennsylvania.
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The clubhouse at Aronimink Golf Club in Newtown Square, Pennsylvania.
Given the opportunity to restore it to past glory was an assignment that Hanse, who calls Philadelphia home, took seriously. To do so, he became a Ross expert on Aronimink, located in this affluent west Philadelphia suburb, and relied heavily on the aerial photographs of Colonel John Victor Dallin, a British-born combat fighter pilot, aerial photographer and military officer who founded the Dallin Aerial Surveys Co. in 1924. Dallin is best known for capturing more than 13,000 aerial photographs of the Mid-Atlantic region between 1924 and 1941 and would always take an extra can of film to shoot the golf courses below him. That collection of pictures is housed at the Hagley Museum in Delaware and served as a launching point for Hanseâs understanding of the golf course as Ross imagined it, which is set to host the 108th PGA Championship this week.
âIt was a bit of a shock,â Hanse recalled of studying the photos. âInstead of his typical sort of one bunker here and what he drew on the plan, he had over 170 bunkers on the course in clusters.â
Hanse returned to the club and pitched them on the idea of focusing on not what Ross originally drew but what he ultimately built. The club signed off on the concept and as a result itâs the only course that Ross built with clusters of bunkers rather than singular bunkers around the property.
The 11th green at the Aronimink Golf Club in Newtown Square, Pennsylvania.
The 11th green at the Aronimink Golf Club in Newtown Square, Pennsylvania.
âWeâll see if it is going to be impactful. These guys are so good that if they hit into one bunker, they just have the face to deal with. If they hit into a cluster of three â theyâre not pot bunkers â but you could get where they are in the bunker but the ball is out of the bunker. There are ridges and dividers to deal with for multiple opportunities between hazards. This additional complexity might provide a little bit of a test that will play out over the next four days and weâre excited to see how that all works out.â
âI like the style of golf, I like the bunkering,â he said. âThereâs a lot of bunkers. I think it provides quite a nice bit of variety with shorter par 4s, a couple of longer par 4s. The par 3s, thereâs three pretty long ones and a shorter one.
âI think in this day and age Iâm not sure if itâs going to test all aspects of your bagâŠ. strategy off the tee is pretty nonexistent.â
McIlroy didnât mean to insult Aronimink; it was more of a subtle shot at how equipment and the distance that players at the elite level hit the ball in this day and age makes it hard for course designers to defend par.
âItâs, basically, bash driver down there and then figure it out from there, which I think is a lot of these newer â newly renovated â I think about Oak Hill in 2023, here. When these traditional golf courses take a lot of trees out, it makes strategy not as much of a concern off the tee,â McIlroy added.
Later, he expanded on how Aronimink very much is a second shot golf course to Ross greens that are full of tilt and subtle undulations that are designed to keep players on their toes.
âGetting yourself in the right sections of the greens, making sure you leave yourself below the hole for the most part,â McIlroy said. Thatâs the key this week.â
Aronimink has been re-worked before. Robert Trent Jones Sr. made changes in 1989 ahead of what was expected to be a PGA Championship in 1993 and a 2003 renovation by Ron Prichard removed many of the trees on the property. Longtime architecture critic Joe Passov, writing in Links, declared Hanseâs work ânot a piece-by-piece re-creation, but rather a sympathetic restoration.â McIlroy and other pros such as Xander Schauffele expressed their dismay with the current trend of removing trees at golf courses.
"When I hear certain designers saying, I'm going to restore this course to 1915, I'm like, Well, it probably takes a good hundred years for a nice tree to grow, just to take it out, just to say it was where it was before," Schauffele said. "I think people keep talking about distance and how the game is played, but just put a bunch of trees on a course â I think Hilton Head is a good example. Do I like Hilton Head? Not really. But it's hard. It's kind of crazy, if you look at the winning score at Hilton Head and the winning score at Doral, one's called Hilton Head, and one's called the Blue Monster. You're like I think the winning score at Miami is lower. It's just funny when you kind of look at it in that sense."
And what does Schauffele think about all the bunkers? "Bunkers are bunkers. It's not a big deal. If you had a bunch of trees around the bunkers, it would be a lot different, you know what I mean? Again, you'd be curving shots and thinking a little bit more," he said. "The greens are the biggest protection this week. They're going to hold up, for sure. I think they're going to cause some problems and make it really tricky on little pitch shots or two-putting or things of that nature. That's the biggest protection the course has."
For Hanse, the clusters of 174 bunkers and the expanded greens that have restored hole locations for greater flexibility in course setup will be put the test this week by the field of 156 pros, but that shouldnât be the determining factor in judging how the latest work to Aronimink turned out.
âThe reputation of this golf course will be recognized and hopefully validated this week but what we did is look through the lens of the membership and the lens of Donald Ross,â he said. âIt wasnât as if we were preparing this specifically for this PGA Championship. It was a longer-term vision and a return to what we believe Ross was intending for this piece of land.â
