About Oak Tree Golf Club

When in the mid 1970s architect Pete Dye got the job of designing Oak Tree Golf Club, he was given only one directive: "Make it the hardest golf course in the world."

He succeeded. At least that's the opinion of the majority of people who have played it. When in 1988 the PGA Championship came to Oak Tree, the pros faced a course with a USGA rating of 76.9 for its par of 71, the highest course rating in the country at that time. In 2002, Pete Dye updated the course with longer distances and added tees, as well as redesigning the greens, which has given Oak Tree Golf Club a new course rating of 77.1. Under normal conditions, this may indeed be the hardest course in the world. One reason for that, aside from Dye's diablerie, is the fact that normal conditions at Oak Tree include a 30 mph breeze. This is Oklahoma, where the wind comes sweeping down the plain.

Thirty five years ago they were a couple of club professionals, giving lessons and selling golf balls by the sleeve. Their success story began in Oklahoma. Ernie Vossler was the head pro at Quail Creek Golf Club in Oklahoma City and Joe Walser was his assistant when they noticed that the club's adjacent real estate lots were selling fast. In 1971 they attracted financing and formed a land development company called Unique Golf Concepts. After an initial project in Greensboro, North Carolina, bore fruit, they began to develop their own backyard, a 640-acre square mile property in Edmond, a quiet suburb about thirty miles north of Oklahoma City. Sometime later, Unique Golf Concepts was merged into Landmark Land Company. To Walser, the hardest part about putting all this together was finding a name for "Oak Tree."

"For a while we were going to call it Deer Creek, after a nearby town," he says, noting that the design team even created a logo with a deer in it. Abandoning that, they latched onto Waterloo, reflecting the difficulty of the course, but that gave way to Robin Wood, the robin being native to the area. They also considered Scissortail, the state bird of Oklahoma. "But we kept coming back to words that represented the golf course, especially woods and oaks," says Walser. There is an actual oak tree after which the club logo patterned. It stands on the 5th hole of the course.

"When I was working on Oak Tree," says Dye, "the only comment Ernie and Joe made was, 'Can't you make it any harder?" Dye calls it the finest inland golf course he has ever built, carefully excluding his seaside gems at Harbour Town, Casa de Campo, TPC Sawgrass, and Long Cove. All of those Dye courses are ranked among GOLF Magazine's 100 Greatest, as well as Oak Tree.

But with the highs came some lows. After hosting the 1988 PGA Championship at Oak Tree Golf Club, Landmark Land's bankruptcy and reorganization prevented the club from hosting the Championship again in 1994. A course once considered among the top 25 nationally soon fell from grace.

In December 1994, Don Mathis and a handful of members bought Oak Tree Golf Club and a short time later Mathis bought out the others to become sole owner. It couldn't have come at a better time for Mathis, who was fresh into retirement from the furniture business.

With Oak Tree, there was plenty of work to be done, but Mathis has enjoyed it. "I'm lucky to have something to get up in the morning and think about."

Every putting surface has been redone. The course's previously extreme undulations have been softened. Course designer Pete Dye was brought in and all 18 greens were totally rebuilt to USGA standards. Numerous back tees were added to the par-71 layout, beefing up the Golf Club's yardage from 7,015 yards to 7,419.

And it seems that Oak Tree Golf Club has been lucky as well. With the clubhouse totally remodeled and the championship course better than ever, Oak Tree now has a full membership and again a Top-100 ranking. And major championships are being played on the course - just like it used to be.

Dye Designs