'Enough To Make You Cry' - Gary Player's Impassioned Plea To Stop Cutting Down Trees

Gary Player wearing a black PXG cap and black polo shirt

(Image credit: Getty Images)

Gary Player has made an impassioned plea to golf clubs to stop cutting down trees on courses in the name of restoration.

“Something happening in America is a tragedy, and it is a disease: they are cutting down trees all over the place,” says the South African nine-time Major champion, who has lost none of his fire at the age of 90.

“They should be planting trees, not cutting them down,” continues Player, who has won more than 165 tournaments since turning professional in 1953.

“It is enough to make you cry,” he adds.

“People on club committees who order trees to be cut down should go to jail for a year. I really believe that.

"They are destroying nature and we need trees to fight pollution, and tree roots save erosion, and trees provides homes to birds and they offer us shade.”

“It is so sad, they have cut down a lot of trees,” says Player, who is an honorary member at Aronimink.

“It is still a magnificent golf course, but people have been advising these clubs incorrectly. They say they want to get the golf course back to its original state, so does this mean that all golf courses cut down every tree?”

The Aronimink golf course was designed by Donald Ross and opened in 1928 – a time when there were about a dozen trees on the course - and Gil Hanse led a restoration project there between 2016 and 2018.

“We’re repainting the picture of the golf course that Ross wanted,” said Hanse in 2018.

“We did remove some trees, and the course certainly has a much more open feel than it did even 20 years ago… We’re working to get a nice balance between what the property evolved into, and what it started out as.”

Hanse widened some fairways, which is in keeping with the “Golden Age” architects like Ross, who wanted golfers on the tee to think about what side of the fairway was more advantageous, rather than simply trying to find the middle of a narrow runway.

Argues Player: “When these old golf courses were designed, golfers played with a ball that flew 62 yards less than they do today, and we didn’t have drivers with metal heads, and the fairways were not cut short like they are today.

"It is barbaric to think along these lines.”

Another prime example is Oakmont Country Club in Pittsburgh, across state from Aronimink, in western Pennsylvania.

(Left) an aerial shot of Oakmont Country Club in 1993 and (right) a general view of Oakmont in 2025 — (Left) An aerial shot of Oakmont Country Club in 1993 and (right) a general view of Oakmont in 2025

Oakmont was the 2025 US Open venue, when it became the first golf course to stage the US Open ten times.

Thousands of trees had been planted on the Oakmont golf course over the decades since it originated as a linsky, virtually tree-free course in 1904, designed by its founder Henry Clay Fownes.

Over the past 40 years, in the name of restoration, over 12,000 trees were removed. It was contentious work, splitting opinion among the club’s membership, and led to dismay on the part of Player, Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus and Lee Trevino, to name a few.

“I look at a place like Oakmont, which has a highway through the middle of it, the place is inundated with pollution, and they cut down every single tree,” adds Player, who played in three Oakmont US Opens, in 1962, 1973 and 1983.

“It is one of the great tragedies that I have ever seen in golf. We have got to stop cutting these trees down.”

Bob Ford, who was head pro at Oakmont for 37 years, until 2016, claimed the trees were “suffocating” the golf course and were negatively influencing shot lines.

So divisive was the issue that dawn raids on trees were organised, secretly coordinated by course superintendents, whereby trees would be cut down at 4:30am, and any traces of logs, bark, leaves or sawdust had disappeared by 6:30am.

Some of the felled timber has been put to good use. One sugar maple tree from Oakmont CC was converted into a bar top for a brewery and tap room, Local Remedy Brewing, that opened in Oakmont town ahead of last year’s US Open.

Robin has worked for Golf Monthly for over a decade.

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