The Honors Course will no longer be hosting three United States Golf Association championship events in an 11-year span starting next year.
As revealed in late February, the USGA is still bringing a U.S. Senior Amateur, a U.S. Women's Amateur and a U.S. Amateur tournament to the Pete Dye-designed layout in Ooltewah.
It's just that Honors Course officials and staff will be following a different timeline than originally planned - one that gives them more time ahead of the spotlight stretch yet allows less time to transition between the first two events.
The USGA announced Thursday that the 66th U.S. Senior Am will now be held at the Country Club of Detroit on Aug. 28-Sept. 2, 2021, instead of at the Honors Course, which will now host the 69th edition of that event on Aug. 24-29, 2024. The course in Grosse Pointe Farms, Michigan, where Arnold Palmer won the 1954 U.S. Am, was set to host this year's U.S. Senior Am before it was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Those moves allow the local club more time recover from damage that occurred during the Easter night tornado on April 12 before welcoming the prestigious event for ages 55 on older.
"The Honors Course is grateful to the Country Club of Detroit for taking on the 2021 championship while our course attempts to recover from the recent tornado," course chairman Joe Richardson said in a USGA release. "Our club's mission has always been to honor amateur golf, and we are pleased to be hosting USGA championships into the next decade."
The day after the tornado, Honors Course director of golf Henrik Simonsen described the "devastating" damage to hundreds trees on the property, telling the Times Free Press they were stripped of the majority of their limbs or "cut in half."
"You wouldn't believe it," he added. "But the clubhouse is fine. The guest houses are fine, other than the lodge, which a tree fell on. Even that was lucky, though, because normally we have people staying there on their way home from the Masters. But with the Masters postponed, no one was there, which was good, because I don't think anyone would have made it out alive."
The club founded in 1983 by Jack Lupton, who died in 2010, remains on schedule to host the U.S Women's Am in 2026 and the U.S. Am in 2031, which will make the number of USGA championships hosted by the Honors Course to eight. Already on that list are the 1991 U.S Am, 1994 Curtis Cup, 2005 U.S. Mid-Am, 2011 U.S. Senior Women's Am and 2016 U.S. Junior Am.
In addition, the course hosted the NCAA men's golf championship tournament in 1996 and 2010.
The Kittansett Club, in Marion, Massachusetts, will host the U.S. Senior Am in 2022, with the 2023 event at Martis Camp Club in Truckee, California.
Compiled by Marty Kirkland. Contact him at mkirkland@timesfreepress.com.