Monroe

The founding fathers of Monroe Golf Club made a wise decision when they appointed Donald Ross to design and construct their golf course in the early 1920s when a 16-year-old Robert Trent Jones was a member of the construction crew.

“Built concurrently with Oak Hill’s two 18’s, the neighboring Monroe is more of a family orientated club and not nearly as busy”, wrote Tom Doak in The Confidential Guide to Golf Courses – Volume 3, “but it’s the best piece of ground for golf in Rochester. It’s a wonderful routing; from a corner clubhouse location, most of the front nine plays on a north-and-south orientation and the back nine more east-and-west, but the two finishing holes and the sensational par-4 17th play diagonally back to the north-west corner.”

Since Monroe’s early beginnings, thousands of trees were planted, including several thousand pines under a NY State program in the 1950s. In the late 1980s, Brian Silva was commissioned to upgrade and re-contour the fairways and he commented as follows:

“[Monroe] is surely one of the greatest Ross courses I have ever seen. I am aware of other Ross courses of greater renown than Monroe yet only know of one that is its match – and Pinehurst No. 2 had the distinct advantage of being the winter home of Ross for four decades.”

In 2008 a Gil Hanse bunker renovation programme completed and the architect remarked as follows:

“We have been extremely fortunate to have been the consulting architects for Monroe Golf Club for the past decade, and it is my opinion that it is the finest Donald Ross course in New York State. The combination of the perfect terrain, sandy soil, and the genius of the Donald Ross design, makes it a must see for any player interested in golf course architecture. With the variety of golf holes, angles of play, and sublime green complexes it has challenged the finest amateurs in the history of golf over 70 years. With this history, tradition, and a chance to study some of the finest golf course architecture on the planet, the MIC is an opportunity that no amateur golfer should pass up.”

The Monroe Invitational Championship (MIC) dates back to 1937 and is one of the oldest amateur tournaments in the US.