The Atlanta Athletic Club’s history dates to the end of the 19th century – 1898 to be exact – with the first golf being played in 1904 on its East Lake property. It was there that a young Bob Jones honed his skills to become one of the game’s greatest champions. Alexa Stirling, Dot Kirby and Martha Kirouac added to that legacy of USGA champions.
John Heisman, the former Georgia Tech coach for whom college football’s highest honor is named after, was hired as AAC’s athletic director in 1908. In the late 1960s, AAC moved to its current location in Johns Creek and two 18-hole championship courses were constructed (Highlands and Riverside).
This week, the recently renovated Riverside Course will host its second USGA championship following the 1990 U.S. Women’s Open, as the club welcomes the world’s best under-19 female players for the 76th U.S. Girls’ Junior. AAC will become the first facility to have hosted both USGA Junior championships, the U.S. Open, U.S. Women’s Open, the U.S. Women’s Amateur and U.S. Amateur.
Kirouac (nee Wilkinson), the 1970 U.S. Women’s Amateur champion who is a past executive director of the Georgia State Golf Association (2013-15), will serve as the honorary chair and played a role as a practice-round starter.
Besides its USGA championship pedigree, AAC also hosted the 1963 Ryder Cup Matches, three PGA Championships and the 2021 KPMG Women’s PGA Championship won by current world No. 1 Nelly Korda.
The next chapter will be written over the next six days. Here are 3 things to know:
New Champion
Although still age-eligible, Rianne Malixi chose not to defend the title she claimed a year ago in Southern California. The 18-year-old from the Philippines, who is headed to Duke University this fall, decided to accept an invitation to the Amundi Evian Championship, in France, the year’s fourth major in women’s professional golf. Malixi, the runner-up in 2023, was suffering from back issues earlier this spring, forcing her to withdraw from the Augusta National Women’s Amateur and The Chevron Championship; she missed the cut in the U.S. Women’s Open at Erin Hills.
That leaves the door ajar for someone new to etch her name on the Glenna Collett Vare Trophy. That list starts with 16-year-old rising high school junior Asterisk Talley, the runner-up in both the 2024 U.S. Girls’ Junior and U.S. Women’s Amateur (both defeats to Malixi). Talley, No. 17 in the latest Women’s World Amateur Golf Ranking®/WAGR®, also won last year’s U.S. Women’s Amateur Four-Ball with Sarah Lim, who also is in the Girls’ Junior field after qualifying for the 2025 U.S. Women’s Open.
Six others in the top 100 of the WAGR who are in the field are Canadian Aphrodite Deng (40), Northwestern University signee Arianna Lau (48), of Hong Kong, China, Arizona State signee Pimpisa Rubrong (61), of Thailand, Texas A&M signee/U.S. National Junior Team member Scharlett Schremmer (62), of Birmingham, Ala.; U.S. National Junior Team member Nikki Oh (77), of Torrance, Calif., Raegan Denton (88), of Australia.
Taking a Memorable Tripp
When AAC decided to renovate its Riverside Course, they turned to an individual with plenty of competitive acumen: Oklahoma-based architect Tripp Davis. It isn’t unusual for an architect to also be a fine player. The legendary Donald Ross competed in eight U.S. Opens from 1899-1908, finishing fifth in 1903 at Baltusrol Golf Club, a year before golf was first played at the original AAC course in the East Lake section of Atlanta. And, of course, Jack Nicklaus won most of his 18 major titles before becoming a world renown designer.
Davis, a veteran of 15 USGA championships who was a member of the University of Oklahoma’s 1989 NCAA title team, had done a number of restorations/renovations before being asked to upgrade AAC’s less-known 18-hole layout. AAC’s Highlands Course has hosted all of the club’s major competitions, including the 1976 U.S. Open won by Jerry Pate and the 2014 U.S. Amateur won by Gunn Yang.
This is the third 2025 USGA championship to have been touched by Davis; the others are Oklahoma City Golf & Country Club, in Nichols Hills (U.S. Women’s Amateur Four-Ball), and Oak Hills Country Club, in San Antonio, Texas (U.S. Senior Amateur).
“If you told me, ‘Hey, 40 years from now you’re going to go back in and redo the Riverside Course,’ I would not have believed you,” said Davis, who grew up in Stone Mountain, Ga., and attended the 1981 PGA Championship won by Georgia legend Larry Nelson. “It’s a dream-come-true kind of thing.”
One of the keys to the redesign/renovation was to highlight the river holes that run alongside the Chattahoochee River, which was made famous by the 1992 hit country song by Alan Jackson, “Way Down Yonder on the Chattahoochee.”
Two ponds on the old third and 14th holes were removed to help draw people’s eyes to the natural beauty of the river. Now, the stretch from the 14th green down to the third green is some of the most beautiful property in Fulton County, according to West Streib, a longtime member and co-chair of the host committee.
Davis also made drastic changes to Nos. 12-14. The 12th is now a reachable par 5 with a green that sits over the top of a creek. No. 13 is one of the toughest par 4s on the layout, and Davis said players who miss the fairway on the 379-yard hole will pay a penalty. And the 14th, which sits closer to the Chattahoochee River, can be turned into a drivable par 4 that could provide plenty of match-play drama.
“Now you’ve got three holes where someone can stand on 12 tee 3 down and can easily get onto 15 tee all square,” said Davis.
These (Short) Hills Have Talent
It certainly isn’t uncommon to have multiple players from a major city represented in a USGA championship: think Houston, Austin, Texas, Orlando, Fla., Tampa, Miami or Los Angeles.
But the unincorporated community of Short Hills, N.J., with a population under 15,000, will have four competitors in the field. That includes 2025 U.S. Women’s Open qualifier Rayee Feng, who celebrated her 17th birthday a couple of weeks after being the youngest to make the 36-hole cut at Erin Hills.
Feng is joined in the field by Deng, a Canadian who resides in Short Hills and captured the 2025 Mizuho Americas Open, a prestigious American Junior Golf Association event held at Liberty National Golf Club, in Jersey City, N.J., that is contested alongside the LPGA Tour event. Rising high school senior Ysabel Liu, who tied for third at the Scott Robertson Memorial in May, and Ava Zhong, who is in the Class of 2029, round out the Short Hills contingent.
And while no one is competing this weekin Georgia, the Greyserman family – from Short Hills – has had quite a last few weeks in golf. Max nearly won his first PGA Tour event at the Rocket Classic (lost playoff on fifth hole to Aldrich Potgieter). Younger brother Dean captured last month’s Florida State Amateur (also in a playoff), and brother Reed, a rising sophomore at Princeton, claimed the 70th Ike Championship, one of the major events of the Metropolitan Golf Association’s competitive calendar.
David Shefter is a senior staff writer at the USGA. Email him at dshefter@usga.org.
