TCC renovations ready for USAm.

• Position: SPORTS

Byline: Bill Doyle

BROOKLINE - When Gil Hanse renovated The Country Club over the past few years, he added 10 bunkers and 300 yards, removed more than 1,000 trees and planted a couple hundred more, and expanded some tee boxes and greens, but he didn't touch the famous Vardon bunker inside the dogleg on the 17th hole.

So when the golfers tee off in the 2013 U.S. Amateur championship Aug. 12-18, they'll play the 17th with the same bunker that caught Harry Vardon's tee shot during a playoff and cost him the 1913 U.S. Open championship.

Entering that hole, Vardon trailed 20-year-old amateur Francis Ouimet, a former caddie at TCC who grew up across the street from the course, by only a shot, but he finished with a bogey. Ouimet carded a birdie to seize control of the playoff.

Ouimet ended up shooting a 72 to beat Vardon by five shots and Ted Ray by six in the playoff to shock the golfing world. Vardon and Ray were two of the greatest British golf pros of their time.

"We really focused," Hanse said yesterday at TCC, "on how do we preserve the traditions of the club and preserve the traditions of this golf course yet look to the future of the game. Obviously, since Francis Ouimet won the U.S. Open here, technology and the game have changed."

The top amateurs should have no trouble blasting their drives beyond the Vardon bunker, so Hanse built two new ones that golfers will have to worry about if they want to cut the corner.

"Obviously, for the modern game, that (Vardon) bunker is misplaced," Hanse said. "It doesn't really come into play for a championship golf course. So our challenge was, `How do we add something down the line from that without taking away from the integrity of that bunker?'"

Hanse also did not change the 17th green, where Justin Leonard made a 45-foot birdie putt to halve his match against Jose Maria Olazabal and clinch the 1999 Ryder Cup for the U.S.

The U.S. Golf Association declined TCC's request to host the 2013 U.S. Open on the 100th anniversary of Ouimet's historic victory, but offered the U.S. Amateur instead.

Ouimet, who died in 1967, would have been proud. Winner of the 1914 and 1931 U.S. Amateurs, Ouimet never turned pro and always preferred the U.S. Amateur to the U.S. Open, according to Bob Donovan, executive director of the Ouimet Foundation.

"We're excited to have the Amateur," TCC general manager David Craig said. "We look at it that the golf course is great for amateur golf. Francis Ouimet was...