Inside Oak Hill Country Club’s impressive eight-lane bowling alley

At first blush, golf and bowling would appear to stand at opposite ends of the sporting spectrum. Champagne and Schlitz. Wagyu and jerky. You get the picture.

Look closer. Start with the games themselves. There may be nothing more akin to reading a putting green than reading a bowling lane. For the uninitiated: There’s oil on the wood and figuring out how it has been applied (aka the “oil pattern”), and then figuring out which type of ball to use (yes, in rudimentary terms, different bowling balls spin differently) and what speed to throw it are essential — just as surely as gleaning slope and Stimp and grain is vital to matching a putt’s proper pace and line.

Or look at the players: The current Scottie Scheffler of bowling is three-time Professional Bowlers Association player of the year E.J. Tackett. The Indiana native went to college on a Division I golf scholarship following a junior career that saw him tee it up against the likes of Scheffler and Jordan Spieth.

Need more proof that the notion of a blue blood/blue collar divide between golf and bowling is wrongheaded? Consider venerable Oak Hill Country Club in Rochester, N.Y., founded in 1901. Its East Course, ranked No. 69 in GOLF’s World Top 100 list and one of two Donald Ross designs on property, has hosted a pair of U.S. Ams (with another slated for 2027), three U.S. Opens, four PGA Championships and the 1995 Ryder Cup.

All of which is mighty impressive, sure. Oak Hill’s lucky members also enjoy a heated pool, four tennis courts, two lighted platform tennis courts and a fitness center. But the jewel in the off-course crown might just be the eight-lane bowling alley, opened in the 1940s and located in its majestic, Tudor-style clubhouse. The lanes host leagues throughout the winter, plus they’re open for the club’s summer camp and private parties.

“The bowling alley holds a special place among our membership,” says Jordyn Weller, the club’s director of membership and communications. “It’s a wonderful amenity, especially during the chilly months of upstate New York winter. We wouldn’t be Oak Hill Country Club without it.”

Golf and bowling: By themselves but especially together, they’re perfect games.

Think Oak Hill’s alley is an anomaly? That’s a gutter ball. Other private clubs with bowling lanes in New York alone include such esteemed retreats as Wykagyl CC, the Creek, Scarsdale GC and Pelham CC. Venture farther afield and you’ll hear pins flying at Greenwich CC and Philadelphia CC.

Five-time PBA major champion E.J. Tackett competed in the 2010 U.S. Junior Am and Junior PGA Championship against fellow future major winners Scheffler, Spieth, Bryson DeChambeau, Justin Thomas and Wyndham Clark.

Ken Tanigawa won the 2019 Senior PGA at Oak Hill over a field that included Mark Calcavecchia — like Tackett, the son of bowling alley proprietors.

Curtis Strange won his second straight U.S. Open in 1989 at Oak Hill. Two strikes in a row in bowling is called a “double.”

Brooks Koepka rolled to his fifth major at the 2023 PGA at Oak Hill.