Enjoy the genius of excellent golf design at Edgewood Country Club. We're lucky to reap the benefit of not just one, but two legendary golf course designers here at Edgewood.
The course was originally designed by Earnest Way, then revamped by Arthur Hills.
Earnest Way
Born in Devonshire, England, Mr. Way learned to play golf at historic Royal North Devon Golf Club — Westward Ho! — on Britain's southwest coast. He followed his older brother to America about 1899.
Following stints as a golf professional in Pittsburgh and Richmond, Virginia, he headed west to Detroit to become the professional and greens keeper at Detroit Golf Club. A charter member of the Professional Golfers Association of Michigan, Way competed in five U.S. Opens between 1899 and 1908. (He was also a lifetime member of the PGA of America and the Golf Course Superintendents Association of America.)
Then the professional and greens keeper at Detroit Golf Club, he orchestrated a notable remodeling of the Prince Farm course beginning in the spring of 1916. Having supervised the construction of Detroit Golf Club's Donald Ross-designed North and South courses, Way sent a letter to Essex directors in December 1915 in which he offered to remodel the Prince Farm course for a fee of $300.
During the 1920s, Way was an occasional design associate of Donald Ross. Curiously, he was replaced as Detroit's professional by Donald Ross' brother Alex, the 1907 United States Open champion.
Besides his remodeling of the Prince Farm course, Way is acknowledged as the designer of the original Edgewood and Pontiac Country Club courses in Michigan, as well as the Hotel Indiatlantic course in Florida, which no longer exists.
Arthur Hills undertook renovation of the golf course in 1989. He rebuilt and reshaped greens, added bunkers and resurfaced cart paths. Among the featured holes at Edgewood is the 345-yard, par-4 #14, where Hills brought a lake into play around the green. To add privacy, a beautiful landscaped berm along Commerce Road, from tees seven through nine, was built in the fall of 1994 and just this year we remodeled the 18th hole to add a risk-reward element to the closing hole.
Arthur Hills, ASGCA.
Mr. Hills is the founding principal of Arthur Hills/Steve Forrest and Associates. Mr. Hills received his bachelor of science in agriculture from Michigan State University and a bachelor of landscape architecture degree from the University of Michigan.
Mr. Hills has been involved with golf course and community development for 40 years. He's past president of the American Society of Golf Course Architects, a Fellow in the American Society of Landscape Architects, and a founding member of the Donald Ross Society.
Mr. Hills is responsible for designing more than 185 new private, resort and upscale public golf courses around the world. In addition, Mr. Hills and the firm have been called upon to refine or renovate more than 125 courses including some of the country's most renowned clubs as they prepared for major USGA and PGA Championships.
Mr. Hills' personal involvement begins with participation in the development of the golf course routing plan and the generation of design and grading concepts relative to the strategy of the individual holes. Arthur is also involved with making construction visits, attending promotional events and providing on-going consultation after the course has opened for play.