Champions (Cypress Creek)

Champions Golf Club played host to the 1967 Ryder Cup matches between the USA and Great Britain. Team Captains were Ben Hogan (US) and Dai Rees (GB). With Ben Hogan as an inspirational Captain, the US dominated the matches and duly thrashed the British Team by the largest winning margin in Ryder Cup history with Arnold Palmer and Gardner Dickinson unbeaten in five matches. At the pre-match dinner, Hogan confidently announced his team as “the finest golfers in the world” and Jack Nicklaus was yet to join the Ryder Cup ranks. USA 23 ½ - GB 8 ½. The Ryder Cup was played at Royal Birkdale in 1965 and the event returned to Birkdale in 1969.

It takes an exceptional course to host both a Ryder Cup and a U.S. Open within a decade of opening but that’s exactly what happened to Cypress Creek when Ben Hogan captained the US team to a 23½-8½ thumping of Great Britain and Ireland in 1967, followed two years later by Orville Moody winning his national Open by one stroke from a group of three players.

The course is set up on a grand scale for championship golf with long holes, large undulating greens and a sprinkling of water hazards around the layout. Eight of the par four holes on the card measure over 430 yards from tee to green so it’s a track that suits long, accurate hitters.

The 540-yard, right doglegged 13th is a memorable par five but the most appealing holes on the scorecard are the par threes, the toughest of which is undoubtedly the 213-yard 4th hole. It was here that, incredibly, Ben Hogan sprayed three tee shots into the Creek during his final competitive round of golf in 1971.

George Fazio added the Jackrabbit course at Champions Golf Club in 1964, just five years after Ralph Plummer's Cypress Creek debuted.