A farmer named Baltus Roll worked this ground in the nineteenth century, and he died on it, bludgeoned by two thieves who had come looking for his money. It is a grim seed for a golf course, but land outlives its stories. The estate later found its way to Louis Keller, owner and publisher of the New York Social Register, who decided to build a golf course. In 1895 the Baltusrol Golf Club opened for play, and the Dutchman's name has stayed with the ground ever since. Today's Baltusrol bears no resemblance to Keller's original layout, which was scrapped to make way for two new courses. In 1917 a committee asked the club's board for leave to hire Donald Ross. Seth Raynor was engaged instead and helped choose the land, and by late 1918 A.W. Tillinghast had replaced him. Tillinghast was not yet the man of Winged Foot and Quaker Ridge. He lived nearby in New Jersey, had Somerset Hills to his credit, and presented the members with something braver than bolting two nines onto the old course. One course would climb the side of the ridge grandly called Baltusrol Mountain. The other would settle into the valley below. Both opened in 1922 after a difficult grow-in, and the valley course became the Lower. The Lower is not as hilly as its sibling. Its fairways undulate pleasantly and run generously wide, as if inviting you to swing freely, and then the greens take the invitation back. They are trickily contoured, slippery and very tough to read. More than 120 bunkers are positioned precisely around them, artistic and plentiful, placed so exactly that some find them cruel. Tillinghast meant his two courses to be equals, but the Lower became the stage. It hosted four U.S. Opens between 1954 and 1993, part of a club record of seven Opens played across three courses, the Old, the Upper and the Lower. That record is unlikely ever to be beaten. In 1954 Ed Furgol gave millions of television viewers something to marvel at. After a wayward tee shot, he played via the eighteenth fairway of the Upper and came back to putt out on the Lower's eighteenth green. He saved par and won by a single stroke, a champion who needed two courses to finish one round. Championships demand their price. Robert Trent Jones stiffened the Lower in 1952 ahead of major championships, and some forty years later his son Rees did it again, later taking on a bunker renovation of his own. Ahead of Lee Janzen's 1993 Open, the course could seem the very picture of an Open test, with deep sand, thick rough, slick greens and length in spades. It could also seem the longest yawn, a little dour, with Tillinghast's hand fading beneath the armor. After a forgettable PGA Championship in 2016, the club changed tack. Gil Hanse came in as consulting architect to restore features from the 1920s and 30s at both courses while modernizing the drainage, irrigation and agronomy beneath them. The Lower he unveiled in 2021 is still a difficult test, especially from the new back tees. Yet it is more sophisticated and less dour now, full of exciting risk-and-reward holes and inventive greens, and it carries a real sense of fun. Even the machinery has charm. Just off several greens, large fans keep air moving and moisture down on the putting surfaces. When they are not needed, they disappear into underground vaults on a retractable mechanism the maintenance staff developed themselves, with a patent pending. The U.S. Open has not returned since 1993, and no future USGA championship is on the calendar. The Lower has found a new partner instead. It hosted the 2023 Women's PGA Championship, and the PGA Championship is due in 2029. The valley Tillinghast chose is still waiting for its next great championship.