The Minikahda Club

The Minikahda Club dates back to 1898 and the club’s first professional, Willie Watson – who co-designed the nearby Interlachen course – laid out the original 9 holes. Seven years later, additional land was acquired to extend the layout to 18 holes and Robert Foulis oversaw its completion in 1907, with Tom Bendelow making some minor modifications very shortly after.

The club hosted the US Open in 1916 when Chick Evans became only the third amateur to capture the trophy and it was just after this competition that Donald Ross was called in to redesign the course. Unfortunately, World War I intervened so his changes were not implemented until the end of 1920, creating the much-loved layout that’s in place today.

A number of significant amateur championships have been held at the club since Donald Ross revamped Minikahda.

The US Amateur Championship was held at the club in 1927 when Bobby Jones won the third of his five titles, defeating Chick Evans 8 & 7 in a somewhat one-sided Final and the Walker Cup was won by the US men’s team in 1957 when they outplayed Great Britain and Ireland 8-3.

The ladies have made their mark too as the US Women's Amateur was held here in 1988 when Pearl Sinn defeated Karen Noble in the final match by a score of 6 & 5 and the 30th series of Curtis Cup matches were played ten years later with the US team defeating Great Britain & Ireland by the narrow margin of 10-8.

A number of prominent architects have worked on the course in recent years, including Geoffrey Cornish and Craig Schriner in the late 1980s and early 1990s and Ron Prichard – the “Ross Restorer” – who was called in by the club in 2001 to lengthen the layout, prune trees, reshape greens, reconstruct and replace bunkers.