Central Ohio Golf Course Stories

The four-man scramble is one of the most enjoyable formats for team competition in golf. After all, finding one decent shot out of four is a welcome proposition to many golfers. Beginning this spring, golf clubs across the country will be able to compete in The Great American Scramble and vie for the coveted title of National Champions in Las Vegas.

After the longstanding Buick/Oldsmobile Scramble shut down in 2005, golfers were left without a national scramble competition. PGA Professional Wayne Stone decided to change that. Stone created an event aimed at bringing excitement, camaraderie and team-building experiences back to golfers through the scramble format.

Stone, who is the director of Golf at Windermere Country Club in Windermere, Fla., decided there was enough interest to create a national scramble just by gauging the response of his members to the loss of the Buick event. Encouraged by the feedback, Stone set out to create the national tournament that was currently missing from the golf world.

We all love “new,” especially when it’s new and improved. The newest jewel in the great golf gallery of the Columbus area is the “new” Tartan East Golf Club.

This New Albany getaway that’s located just seven miles outside the I-270 loop off Rt. 161 has been reconditioned from the formerly private Winding Hollow Golf Club with thousands of hours of TLC by the same Tartan Management people who’ve built quite a reputation for excellence at Tartan Fields and the Golf Club of Dublin.

The best news is that we can now all play this Arthur Hills masterpiece that just re-opened late last summer.

Hills is an Ohio native who already has a Hall of Fame list of classics on his resume across the Buckeye State, from Longaberger and Red Hawk Run to Shaker Run and Turnberry. Tartan East Golf Club East is now ready to take its place among that group of Hills gems. 

We’ve all heard the line "you’re known by the company you keep"? How’s this for a short list of names that includes Little Mountain Country Club in Concord, less than an hour up I-90 from Cleveland — Bandon Dunes, Pacific Dunes, Pebble Beach, Spyglass Hill, Pinehurst #2, Bethpage Black, The Ocean Course at Kiawah, Whistling Straits and Arcadia Bluffs?

Those are some of the OTHER 16 public-access courses, only 16, in the entire country given 5-Stars the last two years in Golf Digest’s Places to Play ratings.

If it is possible for a 5-Star course within 3 hours’ drive of 4 major metropolitan areas to still be considered a hidden gem, this stunningly gorgeous, yet still reasonably-priced Hurdzan/Fry design is that glittering diamond in the not-so-rough. What nearly all those other 5-Star classics have that Little Mountain Country Club doesn’t is either an ocean or mountain view, though you can see Lake Erie on a good day from the top of the 17th tee.