Renovations, events, and updates from Donald Ross-designed golf courses
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North Course to reopen October 10 but South Course will not reopen this year as efforts to remove downed trees and grind stumps are more involved than originally anticipated.
The course recently announced that the front 9 has reopened and they are now back to 18 holes of golf at Black Mountain Golf Course. The greens were aerated on 9/23/26 and should be back to their normal playing condition by early October.
Cheraw Country Club — a course with Donald Ross work that opened in 1924 and closed in 2024, the last 15 years as Moree's Cheraw Country Club — is listed for sale at $995,000. The Donald Ross Society records Ross work at Cheraw in 1924 and 1939; the sale listing attributes the front nine to Ross, and how the two phases map onto today's 18 holes isn't publicly documented. The 172-acre property, across from Cheraw State Park, includes the 18-hole course, an approximately 10,000-square-foot clubhouse and four ponds. According to the listing, the course shows about two years of overgrowth and deferred maintenance, but its corridors, fairways, greens and irrigation remain in place. Suggested uses range from golf restoration to hospitality, residential development and an RV resort.
The club announced that the 6th green complex is getting a “redo” over fall and winter 2026–27. No architect, scope or completion date has been announced. The present green, known for its long camel-back contour, is itself a 1990s rebuild on a moved site rather than Ross’s original.
St. Charles officially opened the Thompson Nine on September 18, 2026 with a ribbon-cutting and ceremonial first tee shots, returning the club to 27 holes and completing a five-year renovation and restoration program. The rebuilt nine — Riley Johns and Keith Rhebb’s par-35 homage to Stanley Thompson on the former Woods nine — joins the restored Ross (2024) and MacKenzie (2023) nines.
Fort Bragg’s MWR directorate confirmed Stryker will close September 30, 2026, citing sustained financial losses and aging infrastructure — roughly $750,000 a year to maintain — with golf consolidating at the on-post Ryder course. The driving range and clubhouse concessionaire are slated to stay open while the Army studies the land’s future. A Change.org petition started in July by Elle Rio, backed by veterans and military families, urges the Army to halt the closure of the 1946 Donald Ross design.
Biddeford-Saco hosted the 2026 Maine Senior Women's Amateur on September 8 and 9 and the Senior Match Play Invitational, the last men's championship of Maine Golf's season, on September 29 and 30.
Scottie Scheffler won on 16-under 264, three clear of Viktor Hovland, for his second FedExCup. It was the first TOUR Championship played without starting strokes, with all 30 players beginning at even par. East Lake hosts again in 2027 before the finale moves to rotating venues in 2028.
East Lake was set up with 29 acres of fairway for the 2026 TOUR Championship, up from 24 in 2023, with rough cut back from 90 acres to 70. The wider corridors are intended to create more risk/reward decisions, building on Andrew Green's 2023–24 restoration, which rebuilt every tee, green and bunker while keeping Ross's routing.
Ravisloe — the first golf course accredited as an arboretum by the Morton Register of Arboreta, which it received in June 2022 — lost more than 100 mature trees in a July 27, 2026 tornado that hit Homewood, plus roughly 10 more in an August 11, 2026 storm. Owner Claude Gendreau called the damage “pretty grim” and pledged to restore the tree population. The second storm came two days after the club’s 125th-anniversary celebration on August 9. The property carried more than 3,000 trees before the storms.
Rick Stimmel won by one stroke over Neil Gordon in the 36-hole stroke-play event for golfers 55+.
Mass Golf named Pocasset host of the 118th Massachusetts Open — the club’s first time staging the state open, and the payoff of a restoration program that recently reconstructed every bunker and tee, enhanced numerous green sites, and installed new irrigation (2025), with a range renovation underway and a new short-game area due by the 2027 season. The club has hosted seven Mass Golf championships since 1978.
- Thorbjornsen closed at 18-under 262 for a two-shot win and his first PGA Tour title in the tournament's final edition - First competitive test of the restored course: played as par 70 at 7,328 yards — a composite in which a 494-yard par-4 second hole replaces the North's par-5 2nd ("Freight Train") and the 505-yard 5th plays as a par 4 - Scoring stayed low despite the changes — multiple 61s, including Cameron Young - Post-restoration member card confirmed via the club's course tour: par 72 (73 forward) at 7,104 yards from the Gold tees
- $16.1M restoration of the North Course completed ahead of the 2026 Rocket Classic (July 30 - Aug 2), its first competitive test - Greens re-expanded to recover lost size and pin positions; bunkering restored toward Ross's original scheme; significant tree removal reopened corridors - Historic drainage channels — the club calls them "fossés" — reinstated as both drainage and strategic features - Work guided by Ross's 1914 plan, the 1931 aerial, and historic photography
- Rocket Companies declined its sponsorship option, ending the tournament after its eighth edition (debuted 2019) - The 2026 finale doubles as the competitive television debut of the restored course - Leaves Detroit GC with no scheduled PGA Tour event; routing was North-led composite (South's 1st as tournament No. 3)
Event held July 23–25, 2026 and won by Ethan Whitaker of Knoxville, TN with a 3 round score of -13
The 12th hole has been rebuilt by architect Gil Hanse as part of the club's ongoing Ross restoration master plan — new green complex, an added dogleg that obscures the green from the tee, and removal of the left fairway bunkers. Head golf professional John Aber describes the change as well received by members.