For those tuning in to the US Open this week, expect lots of talk about Donald Ross. It won’t be a name you see on the leaderboard, but he will leave an indelible mark on this championship.
So, who is Donald Ross and why is he so revered in the world of golf?
Ross was a Scottish-born professional golfer who recorded a fifth-place finish in the US Open and a T8 in The Open, but he became better known for his work as a golf course designer.
After an apprenticeship at Royal Dornoch, he moved to America and wound up at Pinehurst and it’s on this stretch of land in North Carolina where he found his true calling.
“It’s no secret to anybody here at Pinehurst, Donald Ross was the creator of No. 2 and much of what is here,” the USGA’s John Bodenhamer said.
“Donald Ross did a lot of impactful things, a lot of important things. Perhaps at least one of my favorite quotes that he said, it went like this: ‘A country which gets golf minded need not worry about the honor, the integrity and the honesty of its people’. That hangs in Golf House Pinehurst for every one of our staff to see.
“Think about this when you think about Donald Ross. I didn’t realize this until just a few weeks ago. 1,000 USGA championships, 17.5 percent of those, 175 of them, almost one in five, have been played on Donald Ross golf courses. That’s pretty darned prolific.
The par 3 ninth hole at Pinehurst No.2
(Image credit: Getty Images)
“This was his masterpiece. Donald Ross wasn’t just a designer. Sure, that’s maybe what most people know him to be. But he was a superintendent here at Pinehurst. He was a club maker. He was a carpenter. He did other things. But he was a designer, and he lived at Pinehurst.
“You can go to the third green, look left, that’s where Donald Ross lived. His home is still there. Pinehurst is the caretaker for that.
“This was his masterpiece. He refined it. He took it from sand greens to turf grass and kept improving it over and over again.
“Each hole, he talks about this, was a different challenge. No two holes go in the same direction. You think about how the wind works around those holes and how it swings through the pine trees here.”
Ross would eventually design four courses here but most notably, he is the original creator of Pinehurst No. 2, the venue for this year’s US Open and which…
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