Meadowbrook began as a farm, and something of that rolling farmland still runs beneath it. In 1916, 125 acres of the old Cochran farm in Northville were purchased, and Willie Park Jr., the famed Scottish player and architect, was brought in to lay out six holes. Six. It was an elemental thing. Park's routing occupied the eastern part of the property and followed what are now the 10th, 11th, 7th, 2nd, 3rd and 18th. Play those holes today and you are walking the club's first footsteps. The timing was everything. Detroit was building a large share of the country's cars, and the early growth of that industry arrived just as American golf architecture entered its Golden Age. The city became a hotspot for interesting design, and Meadowbrook was a product of that busy time. The six holes soon became nine, and in 1921 regional designers Harry Collis and Jack Daray carried it to a full eighteen. In the early 1930s Donald Ross added some touches of his own. The club sits just off M-102, the road Detroit knows as 8 Mile. And the professionals came. Four times in the 1940s and 1950s Meadowbrook held the Motor City Open, an intermittent stop on the Tour that moved among Detroit clubs. Ben Hogan won the first one in 1948. A year later Lloyd Mangrum and Cary Middlecoff finished tied and went into sudden death, and then they kept going. Hole after hole, neither man would give. After eleven holes darkness ended the battle, and the organizers named them co-champions. No sudden-death playoff in Tour history has lasted longer. In 1955 the PGA Championship arrived, and Doug Ford left with the trophy. Yet for all that history, Meadowbrook was overshadowed in design by its suburban neighbors. Orchard Lake, Franklin Hills, Oakland Hills, Bloomfield Hills and Birmingham all lie within easy driving distance, a dense cluster of vintage parkland clubs. So the club turned to Andy Staples, an Arizona-based architect, for fresh ideas. At the start of 2016 the course closed for an eighteen-month renovation, a reputed five million dollar upgrade: tees, bunkers and greens rebuilt, fairways re-turfed, new drainage laid beneath it all. Park's original holes at the 2nd, 3rd, 7th, 10th, 11th and 18th were preserved. For the rest, Staples set out to carry as many of the Scotsman's features as he could into the holes Park never designed, so the whole course would hang together. A research trip to London to see Huntercombe and Sunningdale gave him all the inspiration he needed. What emerged in 2017 looks, feels and plays like nothing else in the region. The greens are geometric, many rectangular or squared off at a few corners, and they carry slopes well above three percent. The yardage book lists the degree of each slope, and at today's green speeds those numbers make things wild. The bunkers are geometric too, flat sand at the bottom and grass slopes on the sides. The land has tons of movement, and the course makes great use of it. The 4th is rated the hardest on the card, a par five doglegging left with water down that side of the fairway and a domed green at the end. The short par fours at 9, 10 and 14 are wonderful. And the par five 17th rises to a raised, square-shaped green with a crowned center that throws off any approach that is not precise. It is fun, and it is tough, especially the first time around. That seems right for a place that once kept two great players out until dark without choosing between them. Meadowbrook has always asked for one more hole.