Oak Hill awaits latest legend

US PGA: The venue for this week's US PGA is a magical layout that echoes with the great names of the game, writes Philip Reid.

It doesn't take much to get lost wandering around the East Course at Oak Hill Country Club, on the outskirts of Rochester, upstate New York. Not so much lost in the sense of losing your bearings, rather lost in time; and especially around the 13th green, a natural amphitheatre that is home to the club's most treasured tradition, known as the Hill of Fame.

For it is here, with plaques carefully screwed into the thick trunks of oak trees that ring their way around the green, that you are put in touch with the past. It is here that immortals of the game of golf, along with, as Hill of Fame Committee Chairman Martin Gullen puts it, "distinguished citizens who have enriched the American way of life", are remembered.

Some are dead, some are living, but all are remembered for their contribution to golf on this hill, which occupies a rise to the green of the long, signature, par-five 13th hole.

Walking from one tree to another, and one plaque to another, you are reminded of just what a great championship course this is, and always has been. The messages are simple, and poignant. On one, it says simply, "William 'Billy' Casper . . . Man of High Moral Character & Determination, Great Champion and Gentleman." On another, "Oak Hill honors Arnold Palmer

. . . Jack Nicklaus . . . Gary Player . . . Golfers of Supreme Skill." On yet another, "Bob Hope . . . Comedian of the Century . . . Patriot, Sportsman, Enthusiastic Player and Supporter of the Game of Golf."

In all, there are 35 names enshrined in the Hill of Fame, including one team - the 1995 European Ryder Cup team, who defeated the United States in that year's match when Philip Walton's two-putt on the last green was sufficient to fend off Jay Haas and give Europe victory.

"I think one of the things about Oak Hill, and I hope we never lose it, is that history and tradition really matter here. The Hill of Fame is really a golf Hall of Fame, but the unique thing is that a living thing, a tree, is used as the memorial," says Bill Reeves, a long-time club member.

The list of inductees ranges from Walter Hagen, a native of Rochester, to Ben Hogan and Gene Sarazen; from architects Donal Ross and Robert Trent Jones to former US Presidents Dwight Eisenhower and Gerald Ford. When Don Knott, the former president of the American Society of Golf Course Architects, accepted Donald Ross's honour at his 1994 Hill induction, he said: "Ross's courses, like this tree, are and will continue to be a pleasure to behold; changing with the seasons, maturing with the years; and each with its own special characteristics and unique style."

Ross, a Scot, was the man who designed Oak Hill's East Course in the leafy suburbs of Rochester, a vibrant city on the shores of Lake Ontario. He had already designed courses in the area for the Country Club of Rochester (1913), Irondequoit (1916) and Monroe Golf Club (1923) and, after creating the two courses at Oak Hill, he would return to draw up the route for Brook-Lea Country Club (1926) to give Rochester six Ross designs.

The land that Ross used for the two courses at Oak Hill - which came about in a land-swap deal with the University of Rochester, the club giving up its original, old course on 85 acres on the banks of the Genesee river in exchange for 355 acres in the suburban township of Pittsford - had history of its own. It was land carved by retreating glaciers millenniums before, a land of rolling hills and meandering creeks where neighbouring Indian tribes had once hunted.

With his passionate dislike for earthmoving, Ross walked the land for weeks until, as he was to comment, it whispered to him: "It belongs right here, put it here." He understood, like no other, the language of the landscape and he was a master when it came to routing a course. He used the rising and setting sun, prevailing winds, existing hills and dales, a meandering creek to tease and bunkers to direct the play . . . but, most of all, he utilised his genius when he imprinted the holes.

One thumb-print that didn't belong to Ross as the course developed was that concerning the trees that dominate the layout. To Ross, a treeless golf course was reminiscent of home; and it was a member, Dr John R Williams, a world renowned physician, who collected tree specimens from around the world and decided the oak would be the tree of preference. From around the world came acorns and then maple, cedar, fir, hickory and walnut plants.

On his back porch in coffee cans, Williams would tend these plants and when they were strong enough he planted them in his park called Oak Hill. For almost three decades, he wrestled with the forces of nature, coaxing enough life into his plants to ensure their success. Today, the fairways are defined by Dr Williams's trees.

For the 1980 US PGA, designers George and Tom Fazio were brought in to toughen and redesign four holes and, for this week's championship, Tom was brought back to restore peril to the fairway bunkers, part of a $4.7 million facelift that also included new irrigation systems.

Under the direction of Fazio, nine new tees were built to stretch the East Course an additional 230 yards - to a 7,134-yard par 70 - and 78 bunkers were rebuilt to achieve improved strategic placement and harsher consequences. The fairways have been re-contoured and narrowed and the rough is up to four inches in places.

For golf course superintendent Paul Latshaw, the task of preparing the course was set back over the winter when over 140 inches of snow and two ice storms hit.

"It was one of those things that took two and a half to three weeks out of the spring to all the work outside the ropes," says Latshaw, "but we recovered."

This will be the sixth major to be played at Oak Hill and, in that time, only seven players have bettered par. No one did it in the 1956 US Open, when Cary Middlecoff finished one over, or the 1984 US Senior Open as Miller Barber won on six over.

Only Lee Trevino (five under) and Jack Nicklaus (one under) beat par in the 1968 US Open. Nicklaus (six under) was the lone par-breaker in the 1980 US PGA and, in the 1989 US Open, Curtis Strange (two under) and Mark McCumber, Ian Woosnam and Chip Beck (one under) were the only under-par finishers.

According to Craig Harmon, the head professional at Oak Hill and the latest player (this week) to be inducted into the Hill of Fame, there is a simple reason why Oak Hill has been such a sturdy championship venue, and why it has stood the test of time in the face of constant technological advances in equipment.

"It's one of the hardest driving courses in history," attests Harmon. "What's difficult for golfers is putting the ball in the fairway and knowing that if you miss the drive you're going to make bogey. When you have to do that 14 times in a round, that's difficult. When you know you have to drive beautifully throughout the 18 holes, that's so much harder. It's just a great driving course. The angles are difficult to fit the drives into the fairway."

All of which means that Oak Hill is ready to deliver its newest major champion, and that it is a course that will produce a very good one.