Oak Hill East began, in a sense, with a trade. In 1901 the club played a rudimentary nine holes on barren ground near the banks of the Genesee River, and life there stayed low key into the 1920s. Then the University of Rochester set its heart on that riverside land for a new campus. The university had acreage and money to spare. For 85 acres by the water, Oak Hill received 350 acres of farmland and $360,000. The members grasped the bargain, moved to Pittsford, and asked Donald Ross to build them two courses. What they found there was open farmland, which is hard to picture now. The name, the shade, and the whole mood of the place were planted on purpose. An early member, the physician and amateur horticulturalist John R. Williams, set out to dress the property in maples, evergreens, elms, and above all oaks. "The Almighty was the greatest landscape architect of all," he said. "It was his plan to have oaks at Oak Hill." Williams eventually lost count at 75,000 seedlings. His forest became the club's identity. Rochester is something of a Ross town. Irondequoit Country Club, a 1916 Ross design, sits next door and can be seen from parts of the East. The Country Club of Rochester, which Ross expanded to 18 holes in 1913, lies about a mile northwest. Monroe Golf Club, a 1923 Ross course, is two miles southeast. The East, though, did not stay purely his. Robert Trent Jones Sr. renovated it in the 1950s at the height of his fame as the "Open Doctor." George and Tom Fazio reworked it further in 1976, and three of their holes never sat easily among the older ones. Before the 1956 U.S. Open, Ben Hogan said the East was not hard enough for the championship. Then he missed a short putt on the seventeenth and lost by a stroke to Cary Middlecoff. Afterward he called the opening hole the toughest he had ever played. The course has kept its name as fair but fiercely challenging, a place where only the very best get under par. It is the only club to have hosted the U.S. Open, PGA Championship, Ryder Cup, U.S. Amateur, Senior U.S. Open, and Senior PGA Championship. In 1995 came the 31st Ryder Cup. Lanny Wadkins's Americans began the singles with a three-point lead, and rookie Phil Mickelson went unbeaten. Bernard Gallacher's Europeans came back anyway. Philip Walton two-putted for bogey on the last to beat Jay Haas, and Europe won 14 1/2 to 13 1/2. At the 2003 PGA, Shaun Micheel became a surprise major champion. The PGA returned in 2013. In time, Williams's trees were choking Ross's design. The club turned to Andrew Green, with Jeff Sluman assisting, and in August 2019 work began on rebuilding every green and bunker, guided by Ross's original drawings. Alongside that came a tree reduction that was massive and controversial. Green also substantially changed the 4th, 6th, and 15th and created an entirely new 5th. Sunlight and fresh air reached the land again, spectacular vistas opened, and the reopened course played firm, fast, very difficult, and fun. The PGA Championship came back in 2023 to a very different East. Even so, the course remains caught between two ideas. It is a modern championship test with classic flourishes, and it is a restored Golden Age design that still lacks many of its original traits. You can feel both at once. The bunkers carry Ross's look and dimensions again, while oaks still loom to the right of the 14th green, and the course lives somewhere between the architect's drawings and the doctor's forest.