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Los Angeles Country Club will play host to the 2023 U.S. Open, the USGA announced in a move that brings the country’s national championship back to the city for the first time since it was played at Riviera Country Club in 1948.

“This George Thomas-designed gem, the North Course at Los Angeles Country Club, was recently restored by Gil Hanse, architect of the 2016 Olympic golf course in Rio de Janeiro,” said Thomas J. O’Toole Jr., USGA president. “It’s a perfect opportunity to take the U.S. Open to Los Angeles.”

Prior to the 2023 U.S. Open, the club will play host to the 2017 Walker Cup Match, also on its North Course, the first USGA championship there since the 1954 U.S. Junior Amateur. 

“We’re in for a real treat in 2023,” said USGA executive director Mike Davis. “It will be a wider U.S. Open: the course will have generous fairways, and it will be firm and fast. It’s going to give the players a lot of options. And it will be great to take the U.S. Open to the second-largest city in the country.”

The 2023 event will become just the third U.S. Open venue in Southern California, joining Riviera and Torrey Pines Golf Course in San Diego, which held the championship in 2008 and will again in 2021.

The North Course was designed by W. Herbert Fowler and opened in 1921, with George C. Thomas Jr. in charge of construction. Thomas redesigned the North Course in 1927, with future course designer William P. Bell as the builder. John Harbottle guided a renovation of the club’s North and South courses in 1996 and 1997, and in 2010, a five-year restoration of the North Course, under the supervision of Hanse, was completed.

“We’re ecstatic to be going back to L.A. for a U.S. Open after 75 years,” said Diana Murphy, USGA vice president and Championship Committee chairman. “We know the community will embrace this with open arms.”

The club annually conducts the George C. Thomas Jr. Invitational, a prestigious national amateur competition, and it was the site of the PGA Tour’s Los Angeles Open (now the Northern Trust Open) in 1926, 1934, 1935, 1936 and 1940.

The 2023 U.S. Open will be the fourth USGA championship at the club, which hosted the 1930 U.S. Women’s Amateur and the 1954 U.S. Junior Amateur, with the 2017 Walker Cup Match scheduled for Sept. 9-10.

“The city loves to host major events,” said John Chulick, club president. “This region, not having hosted the U.S. Open for so long, will be ecstatic about this.”