East Lake Golf Club: 8 Facts Behind the Tour Championship Home

East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta has hosted the PGA Tour's Tour Championship every year since 2004, a run that traces back to the course's first staging of the event in 1998. Bobby Jones grew up across the street and learned the game there, and the club has changed hands, architects and fortunes several times since its clubhouse and 18-hole course opened in 1908.

How old is East Lake Golf Club?

The Atlanta Athletic Club bought the land in 1904, six years after forming, and opened seven holes in 1906. The course reached 18 holes in 1907, the year it hosted its first notable tournament, the Southern Amateur. The Atlanta Athletic Club has since relocated to Johns Creek, Georgia, but its crest still appears on East Lake's clubhouse.

What is Bobby Jones's connection to East Lake?

Jones grew up across the street from East Lake and is said to have played his first and last rounds of golf on the course, the last one coming in 1948. He won his first tournament there at age six. His father, Robert P. Jones, served as club president from 1937 to 1942, and Bobby held the same role from 1946 to 1947. The clubhouse displays replicas of the four trophies from Jones's 1930 Grand Slam and his Calamity Jane putter.

Has East Lake hosted a Ryder Cup?

East Lake staged the 1963 Ryder Cup, where Arnold Palmer's United States team beat John Fallon's Great Britain side 23-9. It remains the last Ryder Cup played with a playing captain, a role Palmer filled himself. The course has also hosted the 1950 U.S. Women's Amateur and the 2001 U.S. Amateur, and it has held the collegiate East Lake Cup since 2015.

Who has redesigned East Lake's course?

What makes the par-3 15th unique?

The 15th's green sits on a peninsula, in the style of the more famous island green at TPC Sawgrass. It dates to Bendelow's original design and is thought to be the oldest island green still in continuous use in the U.S. following the demise of an earlier one at Baltusrol. As part of the 2023 redesign, Andrew Green removed a bunker guarding the green, leaving a greater chance that a missed shot rolls down the slope and into the water.

How did the course nearly disappear?

The neighborhood around East Lake declined in the late 1960s, and the Atlanta Athletic Club sold its second course, later developed into a public housing project. Further decline in the 1980s left East Lake nearly forgotten until Atlanta businessman Tom Cousins bought the club in 1993 and restored it.

A course that once fell into disrepair now funds the neighborhood around it.

That mission continues through the East Lake Foundation, which receives club profits and funds public housing in the community. PGA Tour CEO Brian Rolapp has said East Lake is "very much in the consideration set for future Tour Championship events," even as the event shifts toward a new multi-venue format.