Ohio State University Golf Club (Scarlet)

Alister MacKenzie drew up the plans for the golf complex at Ohio State University in the early 1930s and Wendell Miller – a Columbus native who had worked on other projects (such as Augusta National) with the architect – was to be the lead builder on the assignment.

Unfortunately, MacKenzie died and Miller was struck down with a heart attack, delaying the start of the project. A replacement architect was sought and, despite the recommendation from Bobby Jones that Robert Trent Jones should be selected, Perry Maxwell was given the contract.

According to Christopher Closer’s book The Midwest Associate: The Life and Work of Perry Duke Maxwell the architect and a professor named George McClure handled the job: “Maxwell would oversee the construction of a majority of the holes on the complex, before dropping from the project and it was completed by McClure.”

The author continues: “The Ohio State Golf Course may not be the best collegiate course in the nation but it has an amazing legacy and history that was touched by two of the greatest architects in history. One can only imagine what the course would have looked like if MacKenzie and Maxwell had seen the project through to its completion together.”

There are actually two 18-hole layouts on the property: the par 71 Scarlet course, measuring 7,455 yards, which was unveiled in 1938, and the shorter par 70 Gray course, which followed a couple of years later. Host venue for the US Junior Amateur Championship in 1977, the Scarlet course was renovated early in the new millennium by Ohio native Jack Nicklaus.