Firestone Country Club

Robert Trent Jones Sr. redesigned Firestone Country Club's South Course in 1959 for Firestone Tire and Rubber founder Harvey Firestone Jr., who wanted a championship-grade venue capable of hosting the 1960 PGA Championship. The original 1929 routing by Bert Way had served the company-club role for three decades, but Jones's mid-century redesign transformed the South Course into one of the most-photographed PGA Tour venues of the 1960s through 1980s. The South Course hosted three PGA Championships (1960 Jay Hebert, 1966 Al Geiberger, 1975 Jack Nicklaus), the World Series of Golf throughout the 1970s and 1980s, and the WGC-NEC Invitational / Bridgestone Invitational through the 2000s and 2010s.

The South Course plays around 7,400 yards par 70 from the championship markers, with bent fairways and a slope in the upper 140s. Jones's 1959 redesign produced what was at the time the longest championship course in American golf, and the routing's reputation for difficulty held through every PGA Tour visit. The sixteenth hole — known as "The Monster," a 667-yard par-5 with the tee shot played over a natural ridge and the second shot across a creek to a fairway that climbs — is the most-discussed long hole on the property and one of the most-televised par-5s of the World Series of Golf era. The eighteenth closes with a 463-yard par-4 that has decided multiple PGA Championship editions.

Firestone Country Club operates three courses — South, North, and Fazio — with South as the championship rotation venue. The property has been owned by ClubCorp since 1999, and access is members and accompanied guests at the private level. Caddies are available; walking is permitted but most rounds use carts given the routing's length.

Northeast Ohio climate gives Firestone a playing season of April through October, with the firmest conditions in September and October — the prime World Series of Golf and WGC Bridgestone tournament windows historically. The course closes through brief winter cold snaps. The mature tree canopy through the property gives the routing its parkland character and has been the photographic identity of every Tour broadcast from the venue.