Eugene Country Club

Overview: Eugene Country Club lies beside the Willamette River in Eugene, where tall Douglas firs, mature trees and gently shaped ground give the course its Pacific Northwest character. H. Chandler Egan’s plan is a traditional parkland design with strategic green complexes and a strong relationship between the fairways and surrounding vegetation. At 7,020 yards and par 72, the course has enough length for championship play, but its identity is more architectural than merely physical. Position, approach angles and the way the tree lines frame the putting surfaces matter throughout the round.

History: The club was organised in 1899 and first played on a nine-hole layout with sand greens. In 1923 it bought farmland north of the Willamette and engaged Egan to design an 18-hole course. His complete original plan was never built exactly as drawn: financial pressure, the Great Depression and the Second World War affected construction, and the second nine was completed with modifications in the late 1920s. Robert Trent Jones later undertook a major renovation in the late 1960s, enlarging greens and reversing much of the routing while leaving 16 of the original fairway corridors largely intact. A further club-wide renovation was completed in 2017.

Did You Know? Robert Trent Jones reversed the original routing in the 1960s while altering only two holes substantially. The result is a rare example of a major renovation that changed how the round begins and ends without erasing most of the historic fairway framework.