Oak Hill Country Club, East Course

In 1921 the University of Rochester wanted the ground Oak Hill sat on and offered a swap. The club took it. The club had started in 1901 on 85 acres by the Genesee River, nine holes in the city; it moved to 355 acres in Pittsford, room enough for two Donald Ross courses. The East Course has held three U.S. Opens — Cary Middlecoff in 1956, Lee Trevino in 1968, Curtis Strange in 1989 — four PGA Championships, and the 1995 Ryder Cup, which Europe won 14½–13½.

The east branch of Allen Creek runs through the property and is a lateral hazard on nine of the eighteen holes. Par is 70, the card 7,390 yards, the slope 153. The course has been built and unbuilt more than once: Robert Trent Jones Sr. changed it in the early 1960s, Tom Fazio before the 1989 and 2003 majors, and Andrew Green restored Ross's design in 2019. Through every version the winning scores have stayed close to the same place — Jack Nicklaus took the 1980 PGA Championship at 274, Brooks Koepka won in 2023 at 271. The oaks came from one man. John Ralston Williams, a local doctor, raised and planted tens of thousands of them across what had been a farmed-out field.