Michigan Golf Journal September 2019

The Golf Association of Michigan (GAM) is celebrating its Centennial Anniversary this year after being founded in metro Detroit in 1919. These short pieces are just a glimpse of the middle years, from 1960 through the 1980s (content provided by Greg Johnson): 1960-1969: Oakland Hills Country Club is Michigan’s Most Famous By 1960 Oakland Hills Country Club in Bloomfield Hills, a charter member of the Golf Association of Michigan, had become Michigan’s most famous club for having hosted multiple major championships, including three of its six U.S. Open Championships, and having top international players as head golf professionals, most notably Walter Hagen and Al Watrous.    The club reached its 50th birthday in 1966. The North Course, like the South, is a Donald Ross original design. It opened for play in May of 1924, three weeks before the South Course hosted the club’s first U.S. Open. On the heels of the Great Depression in 1933 the club opted to operate the North Course as a daily fee public course under the name North Hills Golf Course. It operated that way until the membership voted in 1967 to open it after renovation as the club’s second private course. That work was completed in 1969. 1970-1979: Pete Green, GAM’s Chairman of the Scoreboard Franklin’s Pete Green is one of Michigan’s most accomplished golfers, #GAM100: the 1960s, ‘70s and ‘80s Michigan Golf Journal #GAM100