Host to the 1979 US Women’s Open and 1987 US Senior Open, the course at Brooklawn Country Club is a late 1920s redesign by A. W. Tillinghast that’s been modified and adapted for the modern era by Ron Forse.
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Host to the 1979 US Women’s Open and 1987 US Senior Open, the course at Brooklawn Country Club is a late 1920s redesign by A. W. Tillinghast that’s been modified and adapted for the modern era by Ron Forse.
Brooklawn Country Club was formed in 1895, with $100 budgeted for establishing a 9-hole golf course, $300 allowed for building six tennis courts and $250 set aside for constructing a baseball diamond. The following year, Brooklawn became one of the first twenty-six clubs to join the newly formed USGA.
Tom Morris, Old Tom’s grandson, was Brooklawn’s first professional, and he was followed as a club employee in later years by Gene Sarazen, who got his first job in golf by “cleaning jobs and sweeping up” around the clubhouse. Honorary club membership would come the Squire’s way further down the line.
There have been several major tournaments played at Brooklawn down the years: the U.S. Junior Amateur Championship in 1974, the U.S. Women’s Open in 1979, the U.S. Senior Open in 1987, the U.S. Girls’ Junior Championship in 2003 and the U.S. Senior Women’s Open in 2021.
In the book The American Private Golf Club Guide, Daniel Wexler describes Brooklawn as “an A.W. Tillinghast redesign of an earlier member-built layout on a tree-lined, fairly compact property (which) may not occupy a spot on Tillinghast’s top shelf, but it’s a fine, classic layout well worth seeing.”
In more recent years, Ron Forse has been gradually restoring the layout and the architect commented as follows: “The strength of this place is amazing. It was the next-to-last major design work Tillinghast ever undertook. And it shows off – or showed off – his talents at the peak of his career.”
The latest ranking of the Top 100 Golf Courses in the World serves as the ultimate global golf bucket list. Most members of our World Top 100 Panel are seasoned golfers, each playing 20-30 of these courses annually while travelling extensively over decades to form their opinions on others. We recognise that opinions vary—even among our panel members. Rankings are subjective, and there are undoubtedly 50 or more courses in the UK and USA alone that could easily fit onto this list. Links Golf Pilgrimages The rankings
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