Woodhill Country Club

Overview: Woodhill Country Club in Wayzata is a private Donald Ross course with the quiet, concentrated character of a classic Twin Cities club. The parkland setting combines mature vegetation, rolling ground and a routing that places a premium on the next shot rather than on spectacle. Ross's green contours and strategic bunkering give the course much of its identity, while the compact scale allows the holes to feel closely connected. Woodhill's appeal is architectural continuity: the course still reads as an early twentieth-century design even as the surrounding suburbs have grown around it.

History: Woodhill was incorporated in 1915, and Donald Ross was engaged to create the course during the same period. The 18-hole layout was completed in 1917, with later work and modifications preserving its classic framework. Woodhill became an important competitive venue in Minnesota and hosted the Trans-Mississippi Amateur, including the memorable 1959 final won by Jack Nicklaus over Deane Beman. The club's history therefore joins Ross's original architecture to a significant chapter in the early competitive career of one of golf's most consequential players.

Did You Know? Woodhill is widely described as Donald Ross's only original course design in Minnesota. That distinction separates it from several Minnesota courses where Ross later altered an existing routing rather than creating the full original layout.