Yale Golf Course

The Course at Yale officially opened on April 15, 1926, on roughly 700 acres of rock, swamp and woodland given to the university in memory of Ray Tompkins. Charles Blair Macdonald lent his name and counsel, while his protégé Seth Raynor handled the routing and construction, with Charles Banks assisting; Raynor began surveying in 1923, and the punishing ground forced a planned 36 holes down to a single 18. The result became a showcase of the Macdonald-Raynor template style, with a famous Biarritz par-3 ninth, a Redan and an Eden set among huge contoured greens and dramatic elevation changes. Yale went on to host the Connecticut Open in 1931 and 1981, the New England Amateur in 1972 and 2010, a USGA national junior championship in 1988 and several NCAA regionals. Gil Hanse later led a full restoration that returned greens, tees, bunkers and fairways to their historic dimensions and rebuilt the Double Punch Bowl green on the third, and the course reopened to the public on April 28, 2026, in time for its centennial.