Every year when the TOUR Championship rolls into Atlanta, the spotlight naturally falls on the players fighting for the FedEx Cup. But just as much as the leaderboard, the venue — East Lake Golf Club — tells a story of golf’s past, present, and future. As the TOUR’s season-ending stop prepares to host the 2025 showdown, here are three things that make East Lake more than just another golf course.

1. Atlanta’s oldest golf course & the home of a legend

East Lake Golf Club isn’t just old; it’s historic. Founded in 1904, it holds the title of Atlanta’s first golf course and remains deeply tied to the city’s sporting identity. Its most famous son is none other than Bobby Jones, arguably the greatest amateur in golf history, and the only player to ever win the Grand Slam in a single calendar year (1930). He won the US Open, US Amateur, British Open, and British Amateur all in one year, a feat never repeated.

Jones’s father, Robert P. Jones, served as president of East Lake from 1937 to 1942, and Bobby Jones himself was a club president from 1946 to 1947. Today, the clubhouse doubles as a shrine to his legacy, filled with memorabilia, trophies, and photographs that preserve the spirit of golf’s golden age. For fans walking through its halls during TOUR Championship week, it feels less like a modern sports venue and more like stepping into a living museum.

Even the course itself bears history. Donald Ross, one of golf’s most revered architects, redesigned the layout in 1913 (from the original design of Tom Bendelow in 1904). While renovations have modernized it, his influence still defined East Lake’s character — strategic bunkering, sloping greens, and a demand for precision over power. Ross added character to the course by routing all holes towards the clubhouse. Some of his other seminal designs include the Pinehurst No. 2, Oak Hill Country Club, Oakland Hills Country Club, and the Sedgefield Country Club.

Although the course bears a golden legacy, its story is not free of tragedy. In 1925, a massive fire destroyed the original clubhouse. It consumed many other priceless artifacts inside, including Bobby Jones’s golf clubs and the original Havemeyer Trophy. It was then that Atlanta architect Philip Shutze took it upon himself to rebuild the clubhouse. The present-day two-story Tudor-style building that you see today is his creation.  It was recently again renovated by architect Andrew Green to restore the elements of the original Donald Ross design from the 40s and 50s. This renovation has resulted in a course that is expected to play firm and bouncy, requiring a more diverse array of shots and placing a greater emphasis on accuracy.

“We really wanted to try to get the player to feel like they’re playing more over the natural ground. And that meant that we shaped or reshaped fairways to be more natural,” said Green, as reported by Global Golf Post.

Permanent home of the TOUR Championship

While East Lake has been part of professional golf for decades, it became the heart of the PGA Tour’s season only in the late 20th century. After debuting as the TOUR Championship host in 1998, the course became its permanent home somewhere between 2004-2005, locking in its identity as the FedEx Cup’s grand stage.

Each fall, only the top 30 players in the FedEx Cup standings tee it up here. That exclusively makes the TOUR Championship one of the smallest fields in elite golf, but also one of the most nerve-wrecking. There are no easy cuts, no soft landing — just the game’s best fighting for a season’s worth of glory.

Tiger Woods‘s electrifying win in 2018 remains etched in memory when thousands of fans surged behind him down the 18th fairway in one of golf’s most iconic images. More recently, Rory McIlroy, Patrick Cantlay, and Scottie Scheffler have turned East Lake into a proving ground for modern champions. Its closing par-5 18th hole has provided the drama, but so has the punishing stretch before it, especially the narrow par-3 15th that can crush a FedEx Cup dream in one swing. Another one of its famous par-3 16th hole over water is known as “The Island Green.”

An interesting fact about the Championship at East Lake was that it operated with a unique scoring system called the “Starting Strokes” or “FedEx Cup Starting Times” format. According to this, players began with staggered scores based on their FedEx Cup points ranking entering the event. This means the leader started the tournament with an advantage over others, which added a strategic layer to the competition. However, from this year onwards, the PGA Tour has eliminated this scoring format.

Hosting the TOUR Championship has solidified East Lake’s place as a golfing landmark, contributing to Atlanta’s reputation as a key city on the global map. The FedEx Cup winner receives one of the largest payouts in golf, currently a $25 million bonus pool shared among the top finishers.

Apart from the TOUR Championship, East Lake has also held the 1963 Ryder Cup. The US Team was led by Arnold Palmer as the captain, the last time the United States had a playing captain in the Ryder Cup.

3. A force for community revival — “Golf with a Purpose”

What truly sets East Lake apart, though, is its mission off the course. The club operates under the motto “Golf with a Purpose,” and these are more than just words. Since the 1990s, all profits from East Lake Golf Club have gone directly into the East Lake Foundation, funneling more than $20 million into education, housing, and employment opportunities for the surrounding neighbourhood.

This matters because East Lake wasn’t always the polished jewel it is today. For much of the 20th century, the surrounding community faced poverty, crime, and systemic neglect. The turnaround began in the 1990s, when leaders partnered with the golf club to create a unique model: a private golf course funding a comprehensive community revitalization. One of its flagship projects is the Charlie Yates Golf Course, a par-3 course named after a local golf legend.

The results have been remarkable. Schools improved, housing transformed, and opportunities expanded for residents. Approximately 3,500 residents have benefited from this comprehensive community investment. The success even sparked a national initiative — Purpose Built Communities, founded in 2009 — designed to replicate East Lake’s model in struggling neighbourhoods across the US. Today, East Lake stands as proof that elite sports can co-exist with grassroots change.

When the 30 best golfers in the world tee off at the 2025 TOUR Championship, they’ll be playing for millions, for legacy, and the FedExCup. And they are, this time, looking forward to playing on the newly constructed course. “…Seeing a fresh golf course that I think is going to be really challenging, I think will suit me pretty well out there,” said Scheffler reported by Sports Illustrated (SI). On the other hand, Viktor Hovland, last year’s BMW Championship, was shocked to see the new ground. “As soon as I walked on the property, I was kind of shocked. “It looks nothing like it used to,” he said, as reported by SI.

Which of the facts did you like the most? And do you have any other trivia about the course that we missed out? Do let us know in the comments below.