Denison at Granville

Donald Ross laid out the course, formerly known as Granville Golf Club, in 1924 and it extends to a modest 6,559 yards from the tips. Tight and sloping fairways, coupled with firm and fast greens, make Denison Golf Club at Granville a tough test.

The course was built for John Sutphin Jones, a native of Granville who left town as a railroad conductor in 1885 and returned years later as a coal, rail and financial tycoon. He then engaged Ross to lay out a course on an extensive farmland and wooded property close to where he stayed.

The property was purchased in 1987 by William Wright, who addressed stream-erosion issues and upgraded the conditioning. Water plays a part in proceedings on several holes, most notably with a stream that runs through the 2nd and 3rd and greenside ponds at the 15th and 16th.

Tom Doak commented in The Confidential Guide to Golf Courses as follows; “this old course has been taken over by Denison University after a second round of financial difficulties. Sadly, earlier in their struggle to stay afloat, the club re-routed three holes overlooking the town to a real estate developer, and replaced them with three banal holes between the houses – thus losing the very thing that made the course special.”