Brookside Country Club taps Tyler Rae to restore its prime era Donald Ross layout
Brookside Country Club has named Tyler Rae as its architect of record and unveiled a restorative master plan for its Donald Ross designed golf course. The first multimillion-dollar restoration includes the complete rebuilding of four green complexes, green expansions across the course, a full bunker renovation, fairway widening and a re-grassing of all playing surfaces. It represents one of the most significant Ross restoration projects currently underway in the country, according to the club.
The announcement comes alongside two other major developments. The club has hired Tod Pierce, a veteran private club executive with more than 30 years of leadership experience at championship-caliber clubs, as its new general manager and chief operating officer. And in 2026, Brookside will introduce a national membership program. Taken together, these three moves signal a club that is investing aggressively in its future while honoring the legacy of one of golf’s greatest architects.
A course from Ross’ best years
Ross laid out Brookside in 1920 and opened it for play in 1922, squarely within the 1915 to 1935 window that golf historians consider his prime years. This was the period when Ross moved past the geometric, functionality driven hazards of his early work and began introducing the bold internal green contouring, diagonal bunkering and naturalistic hazard shapes that defined his greatest designs. Brookside’s heavily contoured green complexes and muscular bunkering place it firmly in this lineage, alongside Pinehurst No. 2, Seminole and Oakland Hills.
Ross chose the site for its rolling terrain and a tumbling brook that winds through the property. He routed the front nine across the eastern portion, using the brook to dictate strategy on the fourth and fifth holes. The back nine threads through the western half, capitalizing on the property’s most dramatic elevation changes. His original plan drawings from 1920 and 1923 as built surveys reveal wide hole corridors, open approaches to most greens, treeless sight lines, and large scale sand hazards. This was a course built to reward the strategic golfer who could read the ground and work the ball.
The restoration
The initial phase of work addresses the course’s most pressing architectural needs. Four green complexes on holes six, 12, 14 and 16 will be completely rebuilt, and greens across the course will be expanded to recover the original sizes and strategic pin positions that Ross designed. Every bunker on the course will be reconstructed with modern liners, restoring the character, scale and placement of the originals while improving drainage and playability. Fairways will be widened to reopen approach angles that have narrowed over time. Selective tree removal will recover sight lines and turf health where decades of plantings have compromised Ross’ intended playing corridors.
All tees, fairways and greens will be re-grassed with modern turf varieties bred for drought tolerance, cold hardiness and lower maintenance demands. This is a significant agronomic upgrade that will improve playing conditions and consistency across every surface on the course. Existing irrigation systems will be re-installed and adjusted as necessary to accommodate the restored architectural features, and cart paths will be rebuilt.
The restorative master plan also charts a longer term vision for the course that includes tee rebuilds and repositioning across the layout, new practice putting greens integrated with the first, ninth and 10th holes, and the recovery of Ross’ original dual fairway corridor between holes two and eight. These features represent future phases of the restoration guided by Rae’s master plan.
The cumulative effect across all phases is a course that will play the way Ross drew it. Wide fairways that demand positioning over distance. Open approaches that invite the ground game. Bunkers that frame decisions rather than merely penalize poor swings. And green complexes that reward the player who finds the right angle of attack.
About the architect
Rae mentored under some of the most accomplished architects of this generation. Rae worked with Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw, Tom Doak and Keith Foster before spending nearly a decade under Ron Prichard, the architect the Donald Ross Society honors as the “Father of Restoration.” Since launching his own firm, Rae has built one of the deepest portfolios in Ross and Seth Raynor restoration work in the country. His renovation of Lookout Mountain Club earned Golf Digest’s 2023 Renovation of the Year, and his collaboration with Ross historian Brad Klein at Wampanoag Country Club was voted the fourth best renovation that same year.
What separates Rae is his firsthand knowledge of the source material. He has walked 417 of Ross’s 423 known layouts. That depth of field study allows him to contextualize any single Ross course within the architect’s full body of work and understand how Ross’s design philosophy evolved over five decades of practice.
“Brookside is one of the great Donald Ross courses — bold and memorable. The goal is to restore it as faithfully as possible to its original design intent while keeping an eye toward the future, ensuring a golf course that reflects its historical significance for generations to come,” said Tyler Rae, architect of record
Finding the right leader
A restoration of this magnitude requires more than the right architect. It requires the right person at the helm of the club. Brookside found that person in Tod Pierce, the veteran private club executive the club recently hired as general manager and chief operating officer.
Pierce cut his teeth at Oakmont Country Club, serving as assistant and interim general manager and playing a central operational role during the 2003 U.S. Amateur Championship. From Oakmont, Pierce moved to Longue Vue Club in the Pittsburgh suburbs, where he spent the past 19 years as general manager. Longue Vue is a nationally recognized historic club whose championship golf course was designed by Robert White and later renovated by A.W. Tillinghast. During Pierce’s tenure, Longue Vue was selected by the USGA to co-host the 2021 U.S. Amateur Championship alongside Oakmont. Two U.S. Amateurs at two clubs on his resume is not a coincidence.
His track record at Longue Vue speaks directly to the work ahead at Brookside. Pierce directed tens of millions of dollars in capital improvements while maintaining operational continuity and member satisfaction throughout. He guided significant membership growth and higher initiation fees during his tenure, a testament to the value members experienced under his stewardship. Several managers who worked under him during his 30 year career went on to become general managers at distinguished clubs in their own right.
The team on the ground
On the ground, the restoration will be guided by a golf operations team with deep roots at Brookside and serious credentials beyond it. Cory Kumpf, director of golf, has spent 24 years at the club, starting as a caddie and working his way up through the ranks before being promoted to his current role in 2021. Kumpf is also an accomplished competitor, with more than 20 Northern Ohio PGA victories to his name, and has been recognized with the 2018 Northern Ohio PGA Assistant of the Year Award and the 2023 Bill Strausbaugh Award, which honors excellence in leadership and mentorship. He currently serves as vice president of the Northern Ohio PGA. His institutional knowledge of the course, his standing within the professional golf community and his vision for the golf program have been a driving force behind the club’s renewed ambition.
Complementing Kumpf is J.R. Lynn, the golf course superintendent who joined Brookside in early 2025. Lynn previously served as director of grounds at Columbus Country Club, where he led a master plan restoration and raised agronomic standards across the property. Before that, he spent seven years at Crooked Stick Golf Club in Carmel, Ind., supporting championship level conditioning for the 2012 and 2016 BMW Championships. Lynn developed his passion for elite course conditioning while studying at The Ohio State University and working at Muirfield Village Golf Club, and has contributed to more than 20 professional and amateur events throughout his career, including multiple Memorial Tournaments and USGA Championships.
“The master plan that guided the 2005 restoration, the one that earned Golf Digest’s Best New Remodel, is now 20 years old. It is time to refresh the vision and ensure we remain good stewards of this golf course for the next 100 years. Hiring Tod and launching this restoration in the same year is no coincidence. We wanted the right architect, the right leader, and the right plan before we moved forward. Now we have all three,” said Ryan Fulmer, chairman of the board of governors
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