Charlie Yates Golf Course

History

In 1930, the city of Atlanta opened what was then known as Bobby Jones Golf Course, built as a municipal ground for a growing city that wanted its public golfers to have something more than a patch of fairway and a flag. This was the height of Donald Ross’s career, and Atlanta’s civic leaders secured his services at a time when his name alone lent weight to any course bearing it. The land sat near the Chattahoochee River, in the shadow of Georgia Tech, and Ross set his routing across the available ground with the same care he gave to private clubs charging far steeper dues.

The course endured decades of heavy municipal play, the kind of daily wear that eventually blurs the lines of an original design. By the early 2000s, the layout had lost much of what Ross intended, and the city partnered with the East Lake Foundation to undertake a full restoration. Architect Bob Cupp led that effort, reopening the course in 2003 under a new name — Charlie Yates Golf Course, honoring the Atlanta amateur champion and longtime Ross-era contemporary who had once played the original layout himself. The rebuilding preserved nine of Ross’s original greens while restoring character to the rest of the course, a rare instance of a public municipal track receiving the kind of attention usually reserved for private membership clubs.

Since its reopening, Charlie Yates has served the East Lake community and the broader Atlanta public as an accessible extension of Ross’s Georgia legacy, standing alongside East Lake Golf Club — his other Atlanta design — as one of two Ross courses still operating in the city today.