Hideki Matsuyama 33/1 © Cleveland Golf
We now move to Oklahoma and the PGA Championship the second Major Championship of the year. Southern Hills was founded by a group of rich local businessmen during the Depression and commissioned Perry Maxwell, a local Oklahoman, to design the course which opened for play in 1935.
In 2018 Gil Hanse undertook an extensive project aimed at restoring Perry Maxwell’s classic design as part of a $19m facility upgrade, which took 10-month to complete and finished in June 2019. All the greens were rebuilt with an underground hydronic system which allows the putting surface to be cooled or heated depending on weather or the tournament conditions required and a new bent grass called Pure Distinction utilised to provide firm and fast playing surfaces. Bunkers were also reconstructed with a more natural style and drainage creeks that previously ran underground were also opened up on many holes.
