Thus, Emmet’s work at Congressional, which opened in 1924, will be barely detectable during the Open this week. Ross, the transplanted Scotsman who is perhaps the best known golf course architect stateside — and whose signature Pinehurst No. 2 hosted the Open in 1999 and 2005 — did some work at Congressional in the 1930s. Jones got his hands on the course in the 1950s, finishing a third nine and then, in the early ’60s, changing the routing of one of Emmet’s nines. The current ninth hole, a 636-yard par 5, used to be a par 4 and a par 3, and the directions of several holes were changed.
By 1989, when Rees Jones, Robert Trent Jones’s son, helped to prepare Congressional for its pursuit of the 1997 U.S. Open, Emmet’s influence was basically wiped out.
“I don’t think there’s much left, to be honest,” Rees Jones said. Jones shaved down several fairways, eliminating most of the blind shots with heavy lifting.
“Back in those days, you didn’t really move a lot of earth,” Jones said of Emmet’s era. “We’re able to do a lot more shaping.”
And do it so well!