Oak Tree Golf Club
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The Oak Tree Golf Club is a golf and country club located in the Oklahoma City suburb of Edmond, Oklahoma. The course was designed by Pete Dye, and it opened in 1976. It plays to a par 71.
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[edit] The course
Like other courses in Oklahoma, Oak Tree is a very windy course and can often have winds of at least thirty miles per hour. It also is located on hilly terrain, and uneven lies are common from the fairway or rough. The greens are difficult to hit well, and are undulating enough to make any par tough.
In its 2006 listing of the best golf courses by state, Golf Digest ranked Oak Tree third in the state of Oklahoma. The course was redesigned by Pete Dye in 2002. The course measures 7,412 yards from the tournament tees and 6,873 yards from the championship tees. [1] However, for the 2006 Senior PGA Championship, the course played to 7,102 yards. [2] Oak Tree has Bent grass for the greens, and bermuda grass for the fairways. Water comes into play on thirteen of the eighteen holes. The course and slope rating is 77.1/149 from the tournament tees and 73.2/138 from the championship tees.
Each hole has its own name, and some holes are named after famous courses or golf holes. The signature hole is the fifth hole (named Oak Tree), a 592 yard par five where players must avoid the oak tree that is used in the club's logo. Other notable holes include the eighth hole (named Harbor Town after Dye's Harbour Town Golf Links), par three with water down the entire left side. The twelfth hole (named after the Prairie Dunes Golf Club) is a long, tight par four.
Oak Tree is the home course of six PGA Tour players: Mark Hayes, Gil Morgan, Doug Tewell, Bob Tway, Scott Verplank, and Willie Wood.
[edit] Tournaments held
Oak Tree has hosted a major championship and a senior major championship in addition to numerous other Professional Golfers' Association of America championships and one United States Golf Association-sanctioned championship.
The first notable tournament to be held at Oak Tree was the 1984 United States Men's Amateur Golf Championship which was won by Scott Verplank. In 1988, the PGA Championship came to Oak Tree. Jeff Sluman won with a score of twelve under par 272, clinched with a final round 65. In 2000, the PGA Professional National Championship (then called the PGA Club Professional Championship) was held at Oak Tree; Tim Thelen won it in a playoff. Most recently, in 2006, the Senior PGA Championship was held at Oak Tree. Over the four days, gusty winds kept scores barely under par. Jay Haas defeated Brad Bryant in a playoff with a final score of 279, five under par.
[edit] Controversy
Oak Tree has been criticized for having a noose hang off of a tree to the left of the green on the par five sixteenth hole. The newspaper The Oklahoman criticized it as a possible symbol of racism in an October 2004 column. It was removed soon after, well before the 2006 Senior PGA Championship. It was originally placed there by a golfer who had struggled on the hole. [3]
Oak Tree was also to have hosted the 1994 PGA Championship. However, it was moved to Southern Hills Country Club in Tulsa, Oklahoma originally because of the club's filing Chapter 11 Bankruptcy in 1990. Later on, it was publicized that Oak Tree had few or no minority or women members in its membership. This further caused the PGA of America to move the tournament to Southern Hills. [4]
[edit] References
- ^ Oak Tree Golf Club: Score Card. Oak Tree Golf Club (2006). Retrieved on 2006-08-06.
- ^ Course Overview. PGA.com (2006). Retrieved on 2006-08-06.
- ^ The Bunker. Golf World (2004). Retrieved on 2006-08-06.
- ^ Course Critic. Ron Whitten, GolfDigest.com (2005). Retrieved on 2006-08-06.
