Atlanta Athletic Club reveals plans for Highland Course transformation

The Atlanta Athletic Club has unveiled details of the upcoming transformation of its Highlands Course. Noted architect Andrew Green of AH Green Design, Green Golf & Turf, has prepared a significant redesign of the 55-year-old course—host of the 1976 U.S. Open, plus the 1981, 2001, and 2011 PGA Championships, 1990 U.S. Women’s Open Championship, 2014 U.S. Amateur Championship, and the 2021 KPMG Women’s PGA Championship—as part of a comprehensive golf course master plan approved by members last year.

Countless moments in golf history were recorded at AAC, which was founded in 1898. But the club’s most enduring legacy is its association with Robert Tyre “Bobby” Jones, the consummate amateur who won the four major championships of his day in 1930, the “Grand Slam.” Jones, who died in 1971, was a lifelong member and former president of AAC. A significant collection of trophies and other memorabilia from his golf career is on display in its expansive clubhouse. Located 25 miles northeast of downtown Atlanta, the AAC is a private 36-hole club and has been in its current location since 1969.

Jones’s accomplishments as a player and architect—notably the design of Augusta National, which he created with Alister MacKenzie—influenced Green’s thoughts as he was planning the Highlands transformation. Asked by the membership to come up with the best possible golf experience, Green turned to Jones and MacKenzie for inspiration.

“I wanted to make the future of Highlands timeless, meeting the level of such an important club in the history of the game,” Green said. “I honed in on the idea of what did Bobby Jones think of the game of golf, because this club fostered him the entire way.”

Green did a “deep dive” into the Jones-MacKenzie relationship. They’d met before but had lots of time to talk architecture in the late summer of 1929 after Jones surprisingly lost in the first round of the U.S. Amateur, played at Pebble Beach Golf Links on California’s Monterey Peninsula. Jones had to stick around, having committed to playing an inaugural round at MacKenzie’s new course up the coast, Pasatiempo. That time together convinced Jones to choose MacKenzie to work with him on Augusta National a few years later.

“Articles that were written about Jones, MacKenzie, and Augusta National started to speak to me,” Green said, “combining MacKenzie’s 13 principles of golf architecture with the thoughtfulness of Jones and what he said about what they were going to try to achieve, and did achieve, at Augusta. I thought if that’s what Jones thought was most important, that should be an inspiration for us on Highlands.”

In the proposed course transformation—particularly on the back nine, which sits in a floodplain and currently requires lengthy walks between greens and tees—Green’s plan reflects a careful balance between the natural constraints of the property and what he believes Bobby Jones would value in the game today. 

One of MacKenzie’s principles was “Every hole should have a different character.” Green looks to achieve this on the new Highlands by designing uniquely shaped greens with a large variety of hole locations; a deft mix of long and short holes; building what he called “half-par” holes; and working in some shots that Jones reminisced about playing in Scotland and other parts of the British Isles.

“Golfers will be able to hit every club in their bag,” Green said. “They’ll be able to have shots that move right to left and left to right, that play uphill and downhill, with a greater rhythm to the round. Also, the par-threes were a huge concentration point for me, which are something both MacKenzie and Jones believed in deeply. I tried to give each its own personality.”

Green also reported finding an article in the Augusta Chronicle in which Jones described the then-new Augusta National. “He said he didn’t want to embarrass his friends but also create a true test of golf. Those are things that still make sense today.”

Work on the Highlands Course will begin in July 2027 and is expected to be completed by Fall 2028. In 2030, AAC will host its second U.S. Amateur, utilizing both its Highlands and Riverside Courses, and celebrate the 100th anniversary of Jones’ completion of the Grand Slam. The U.S. Women’s Amateur will be contested on the Highlands Course in 2035.