Design Notebook: Details on Tyler Rae’s Plans for Detroit Golf Club

Greetings and welcome back to Design Notebook, where we’re already having dreams involving gorse, sand scrapes, and Postage Stamps.

In this week’s DN, we interview Tyler Rae about his upcoming work at Detroit Golf Club, and Garrett Morrison adds some thoughts on DGC’s choice to try an all-at-once course renovation after spending decades taking a piecemeal approach.

Tyler Rae Prepares for a Renovation of Detroit Golf Club

By Garrett Morrison

When I heard earlier this year that Tyler Rae had been hired to restore the two Donald Ross-designed golf courses at Detroit Golf Club, I was slightly confused. The club had already been working with a historically minded architect, Bruce Hepner, since 2000. How much more could there be to do?

A great deal, according to Rae’s new master plan. After the 2025 Rocket Mortgage Classic, which DGC hosts annually, Rae will oversee a $16-million historical renovation of the club’s North course. The project will involve overhauling drainage and irrigation infrastructure, removing problematic trees, reconstructing bunkers and greens, and restoring many elements of Donald Ross’s original design, including bunker positions, green sizes and contours, and a set of ditches that once crisscrossed the property. Rae’s recommendations are well researched and compelling, and I’m excited to see how the refreshed North course plays at the 2026 Rocket Mortgage.

As I’ve argued in previous Design Notebooks, however, there’s a potential downside to this kind of fast, ambitious renovation. When an old course is rebuilt in less than a year, it tends to come out feeling new, even if the bunker and green shapes all match those in the historical photos. Often, though, this mixture of old and new—Golden Age architecture combined with the brightness, sharpness, and consistency of 21st-century playing conditions—is exactly what club members want. Only stubborn romantics like me prefer a slower approach to golf course restoration, one that carefully preserves the tattered edges of actual antiquity.

It just so happens that Bruce Hepner, DGC’s former consulting architect, is one such romantic. As he explained in a conversation I had with him last year, he likes taking his time with historical projects, gradually peeling back layers and making small, low-cost adjustments until the original course reemerges. The virtues of this method are on display at Essex County and Cape Arundel, a pair of relaxed northeastern clubs that have given Hepner the time and support to complete his process. Perhaps DGC simply didn’t have the same patience, especially once it became a PGA Tour venue in 2019.

In any case, I expect Rae’s transformation of the North course in 2025 to be a fun topic of discussion. To kick things off, my colleague Joseph LaMagna emailed Rae a few questions during the Rocket Mortgage Classic two weeks ago.

Joseph: Drainage has been an issue at Detroit Golf Club. Can you give a high-level explanation of why DGC drains poorly and the biggest benefits of addressing this problem?

Tyler: The course lays very flat and there is minimal fall (slope) across the entire property. Donald Ross’s genius was on full display as he designed and dug very deep angular ditches in many locations across the property. They then used the fill dirt from those deep ditches for raising the greens to help 1) defend the golf course and 2) drain the putting surfaces so they always remained dry or drier than the rest of the property. The ditches served mainly to move water but also came into play strategically during the play of the golfing grounds. Many if not nearly all have been filled in over the years. Ross also designed many areas with hummocks and mounds to help amp up the y-axis (verticality) of the property. Brilliant stuff.

Joseph: You’ll have Donald Ross’s detailed plan for the golf course as well as historical photos. As you plan out the restoration work, how do you balance bringing the North course back to exactly how Ross envisioned it versus considering how the course will challenge today’s professional golfers? Will looking at ShotLink data and how PGA Tour players attack this golf course be part of your process?

Tyler: This course really needs to be designed and rebuilt to challenge players of all types and skill sets. I don’t plan on trying to defend par solely for the best players in the world. I want everyone to enjoy the course after the restoration. Luckily, Ross had more open approaches into greens and wider fairways with multiple lines of play off the tee. I think it may play easier off the tee in the future but more difficult once you get on the putting surface if you don’t play below the hole or to the correct side of the flag. We have noticed that the PGA Tour doesn’t want this to be another U.S. Open test, and that birdies are fun to watch. This tournament is for charity, after all.

Joseph: The work will reportedly cover “every feature on the golf course.” Which facets of the design are you most excited to restore?

Tyler: Hummocks, bold ditches, and interesting green contours. Really the whole thing A-Z. I can’t wait to be creative and channel the best of Donald Ross that I have seen in my travels and utilize his original plan, aerials, and ground-level photography the best we can.

Joseph: Aside from better drainage and firmer conditions, where will golfers notice the biggest difference in how the course plays after the restoration

Tyler: It will look really different. Bold, flashed, lacy-edged bunkers that were rare for Ross in the northern part of the States. The property is so flat that he had to get creative to “show” bunkers from the tee—thus, he went with a more rare style for him, one we typically see in the Pinehurst or Florida localities. We know this because we have some amazingly detailed photos from the 1920s that are jaw-dropping and our team did a fantastic deep dive to find anything and everything we could to figure out what the original intent of the design was. Ross was incredibly bold and sort of stepping out of the shadows of Harry Colt, Willie Park, Jr., Walter Travis, and others as he was hanging his shingle for real in October of 1914 when he laid the 36 holes out. We also believe this was possibly the first master plan that Donald Ross produced in his career, as we cannot find any other plans with earlier dates than 1914 in our research.

Chocolate Drops

By Garrett Morrison

Rae takes on another Ross project: Speaking of Tyler Rae and his full dance card, the architect revealed on Instagram last week that he is “methodically crafting” a master plan for Longmeadow Country Club, a 1922 Donald Ross design in southern Massachusetts.

Medinah eyes a debut: After a striking redesign by Australian firm OCM (Geoff Ogilvy, Mike Cocking, and Ashley Mead), Course 3 at Medinah Country Club near Chicago will reopen later this week. The reworked course will host the 2026 Presidents Cup, and we wouldn’t be shocked to see it book additional high-profile tournaments in the near future.

Hazeltine gets some Love: Davis Love III’s firm Love Golf Design announced on June 29 that it had broken ground on a 10-hole short course as well as a putting course that “will span over an acre” at Hazeltine National Golf Club. Love Golf Design would be smart to use these minor builds to get Hazeltine’s membership comfortable with bold design concepts. The firm will probably want a little leeway to experiment and push boundaries in its eventual work on the club’s somewhat bland 18-hole course.

Coyne drops a hint: On X yesterday, author and Golfer’s Journal editor Tom Coyne, who recently partnered with architect Colton Craig to form the firm Craig & Coyne Design, posted a teaser for a new-build project on a ravine-striped piece of rural land. “Stay tuned for the when, where, and how,” Coyne wrote. Could a Golfer’s Journal article be in the offing?

Look like a good place for a golf course? We think so. Sandy hills, wandering water, deep ravines. And land with a long family history. @LandscapesUnLLC and Craig&Coyne Design are partnering to do something special here. Stay tuned for the when, where, and how. pic.twitter.com/9wBhYJjK1x

— Tom Coyne (@coynewriter) July 7, 2024

GrayBull comes together: Photos have begun to circulate of David McLay Kidd’s contribution to the Nebraska Sandhills canon, GrayBull Golf Club, a Dormie Network facility about 12 miles north of I-80. Kidd’s predilection for enormous sand scrapes appears to be intact.

NebGolf staff got its first look at @GrayBullClub yesterday on a Course Rating visit 😍.

Another world class golf course opening in Nebraska soon! pic.twitter.com/h2yn81Kipo

— NebGolf (@NGAgolf) July 3, 2024

Schneider’s northern journey: As architect Brian Schneider mentioned in his recent appearance on the Fried Egg Golf podcast, he spent a portion of June playing some old, obscure, very cool courses in Maine. This is a trip I’ve wanted to take for a while, so I’m barely able to restrain my envy long enough to recommend that you check out Schneider’s Instagram page for more details.

A Course We Photographed Recently

Black Desert Resort (Ivins, UT)—designed by Tom Wieskopf in 2023

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Quotable

“Nothing contributes more to the popularity of golf than its almost endless variety. No two courses are the same, even though they be similar in character; no two shots are the same, even though the same distance has to be accomplished. This variety is a very distinct feature of the game. Football or cricket grounds, if good, do not vary much one from another. Certain soils, no doubt, lend themselves better to turf growing than others, and the sticky pitches favor the bowlers, but the conformation of the cricket and football field remains the same. In golf it is quite otherwise; each course has its own features, and each demands a fresh variety of strokes…. No golfer has ever been forced to say to himself with tears, ‘There are no more links to conquer.’ These visits to strange courses are the best education for the golfing mind.” -John Low