Firestone Country Club

Tiger Woods makes his long-awaited return to competitive golf at an event he has won more times than any other – the World Golf Championships-Bridgestone Invitational at Firestone Country Club in Akron Ohio. Named after Harvey Firestone, the founder of the Firestone Tyre and Rubber Company who built the club in 1929 for the recreation of his employees, this is one of the most celebrated venues on the golfing calendar. Hosting the PGA Championship in 1960, 1966 and 1975, and the World Series of Golf from 1962 until 1999 when it became the WGC-NEC Invitational, Firestone Country Club played a key role when golf was being elevated to an unprecedented level in America’s sporting hierarchy during the sixties.

Today, Firestone offers arguably the best 54 holes of golf available on one site in the US. The Bert Ray designed South Course was the first, followed forty years later by Robert Trent Jones’ North Course that is famed for the scenic beauty of its lakes and streams. In 2002 iconic golf course architect Tom Fazio completed a dramatic redesign on Geoffrey Cornish and Brian Silva’s West Course that originally opened for play in 1989.

Firestone’s flagship South Course plays host to the 13th edition of the Invitational, and since the redesign by Robert Trent Jones in 1960 when two new ponds and more than 50 bunkers were added, the layout has gone on to become one of the most formidable tests in golf. Affectionately known as The Monster, this wonderful parkland design with bent grass greens and fairways stretches over 6800 metres and plays to a par of 70. The course is characterised by long and difficult par 4’s with narrow tree-lined fairways.

The 430m par 4 4th plays to a well-elevated green and the 428m dogleg par 4 6th is usually the toughest scoring hole. The monstrous 600m par 5 16th is the signature hole and requires a 260m carry to fly the fairway bunkers. Caution is needed on the approach shot as the front of the small green is guarded by a pond that is fed by the creek running down the right side of the fairway. Bailing out by going long will leave a return shot from the rough or a bunker to a green sloping down to the pond.

Firestone is a tough but fair test for the best golfers in the world, and The Monster will provide a great opportunity for the players to tune their game up for the year’s final major next week.

Golfweather Editorial