North Fulton Resident Recalls Last Locally Hosted PGA Championship in 2001

I ran into a few friends at the cigar shop this past week and after the conversation ran through the weather, politics and the upcoming football season, it naturally turned to the PGA Championship that's about to get under way in North Fulton. 

I remember the last time the PGA Championship was hosted by the Atlanta Athletic Club and began to think about how, when the giants of the links stepped up to tee-off at the start of the 83rd PGA Championship in 2001, the world was a much different place. 

It was just one month before the Sept. 11 attacks that would leave nearly 3,000 dead in New York, Pennsylvania and at the Pentagon, shattering a false sense of security that the nation had come to rely on. 

It was two months before the Arizona Diamondbacks – the “new kids on the block” – would defeat the legendary New York Yankees in the World Series to win the famous “November Series” – so named because the championship series went into the month of November due to the delay of the regular season following the 9/11 attacks.  

And it was three months before the release of the very first motion picture in the phenomenal Harry Potter series, "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone."

But, perhaps, the biggest change since the 83rd PGA Championship in 2001 was the location of the venue – though it didn’t move during the last decade. 

While the Atlanta Athletic Club remained on Medlock Bridge Road, the area changed from unincorporated Fulton County to the city of Johns Creek, and the location changed from a Duluth address to one firmly ensconced within the city limits of a town that has since grown to become the 10th largest city in Georgia.

Still, the Atlanta Athletic Club is accustomed to change and changing times. 

Founded in 1898 in Atlanta by a group of 65 men, the club was located on Edgewood Drive, near the Equitable building, on property known as East Lake – a pristine body of water surrounded by a beautiful forest. 

Golf Legend Bobby Jones Jr. would make the Atlanta Athletic Club his home club – even serving as its president from 1946 to 1947.

The club would go on to host a number of golf tournaments, including The Golden Anniversary of the Woman’s Amateur Golf Championship in September 1950.  It was the first time a USGA National Championship was ever played in Atlanta. 

In 1963, the Ryder Cup Matches were played at East Lake, but by then the neighborhoods around East Lake were beginning to succumb to urban decay and what became known as “white flight.”

By the 1970s, the club had moved to an unincorporated area of North Fulton County, just north of the Chattahoochee, near the town of Duluth.  And it didn’t take long for this vibrant and well-heeled club to, again, attract the attention of the PGA.

In 1976, Jerry Pate won the U.S. Open here, followed, in 1981, by Larry Nelson, who won the PGA Championship – the first PGA Championship hosted by the Atlanta Athletic Club.  In 1990, Betsy King took the trophy for the U.S. Women’s Open, and in 2001 David Toms took the honors at the 83^rd PGA Championship.

The last change – and perhaps the most significant change as far as the pros are concerned – is the course itself.

Legendary course designer Rees Jones, son of Bobby Jones Jr., redesigned this Highlands course in 2006 – the same year Johns Creek became a city and reached out to claim the Atlanta Athletic Club and its newly redesigned course within its city limits.  

So this year, starting from the first tee box, the pros are playing on a tighter course, strategically bunkered along the narrow, Diamond Zoysia Fairways and Champion Ultra-dwarf Bermuda greens and surrounded by Tifton 10 rough.

One thing that has not changed - the PGAs committment to "giving back."

During its history the PGA has given well over a billion dollars to charitiy. The benefits derived from this year's championship event in Johns Creek will help no less than 50 charities, many of which are locally based. Some of the smaller charities will actually earn enough to accelerate their efforts exponentially and boost their continued fundraising in ways that they could never have accomplished without the help of the PGA.

The prestige of both the PGA and the Atlanta Athletic Club, combined with their incredible histories, make this tournament more than just a few rounds of celebrity golf or a stroll through beautiful landscapes.  It’s an event – an event that spans nearly a century of American history; surviving wars, economic disasters and social upheaval.  An event that – despite the added traffic and congestion for a week - brings pride to a town, a shot of revenue to an area that’s fighting the effects of a sour economy and help to those in need.