ATLANTA – On Wednesday Geoff Ogilvy called East Lake Golf Club one of his favorite layouts on the PGA Tour. Earlier this month after slipping into the top 70 in FedEx Cup standings and advancing to the BMW Championship he deadpanned, “I get rewarded with a trip to Cog Hill.”
It is beyond evident that the Rees Jones-redesigned Cog Hill is not among the rank-and-file’s favorite stops, yet somehow East Lake, which was also “restored” by Jones in 1994, is widely endorsed.
Why the disconnect?
“We interviewed many (architects) and made it clear we wanted the course to continue to be a Donald Ross,” said Tom Cousins, the patriarch of the East Lake project, which included the restoration of the course. “Pete Dye wanted to make it a Scottish links-type course and that’s not what we wanted. But Rees made it clear he was going to keep it a Ross.”