Page 58 - Western Amateur 120th Championship Program 2022, Exmoor Country Club

Exmoor: A Donald Ross Masterpiece,
Four Years in the Making

Donald Ross new course plan, ca. 1915, showing hole #1 (top) under construction (new features marked in black)

In 2022, Exmoor Country Club will will challenge contestants at this year’s yards away has been raised six feet
celebrate the 107th anniversary of its Western Amateur: and on the left is a sandy trap, while a
Donald Ross-designed golf course. player approaching the right side of
“From the first tee 200 yards down is
the green will have to go over a gentle
Ross completed construction of the a finely made hazard of traps and
knoll seven feet high.” (Chicago
first three holes in late 1915, and the copses which are thirty feet wide.
Tribune, December 15, 1915)
remaining holes were finished over the Four hundred yards down the course
next four years in a project costing on the left there is a long, rakish
$35,000. Coordinating with Ross at hazard 45 yards long. The green 100
Exmoor were Greens Chairman Tom
Wyles and Golf Pro Jack Croke.
For more than a century, Exmoor has
maintained the integrity of the original
Ross design. One news account of the
first hole from 1915 describes these
design features, all of which are
recognizable in the starting hole that

Golf Architect Donald Ross Donald Ross fairway bunker, left side, hole No.1, restored by Ron Prichard, 2003

56 The Exmoor Golf Course Exmoor Country Club