Oak Hill Country Club: On Time, On Budget for the 2023 PGA

You don’t have to be a golf fanatic to have heard of Oak Hill Country Club. Located just outside Rochester, New York, the 122-year-old club is unique among golf courses in that it is the only club to have hosted all six rotating men’s championships, including the Ryder Cup, the United States Amateur, and several others. 

Making HVAC Preparations for the 2023 PGA Championship

In late 2022, Oak Hill was looking ahead to the 2023 PGA Championship, which was slated to be held there in May. For the facilities team, the run up to the event was going to be just another day at the office, at least until they determined their existing HVAC system was at the end of its functional lifespan.

“We looked at our chillers and the way they were performing, and decided we didn’t want to risk running them through the PGA,” said Chad Ellis, General Manager at Oak Hill. “The last thing we wanted, when the eyes of the world are on us, was an equipment breakdown.”

Oak Hill's HVAC Challenge with a Tight Deadline

The issue was that the PGA was only six short months away. At first, Oak Hill considered renting chillers for the tournament, but quickly realized the solution would be both cost prohibitive and temporary. They needed a vendor that could not only assess the problem, but design a solution, bid on it, and implement it in time.

As it happened, Oak Hill was already a Trane customer. Still, club practices demanded that the project be sent out for bid. After an extensive RFP process, Trane won the business.

The Trane team considered several options for the solution design, and in the end the team selected Trane’s Thermafit® Air-Cooled Modular chillers. The units checked all the right boxes from specs to budget to space requirements. They also had the best lead time of the various options and required only minimal modifications for Oak Hill.

Versatile and Scalable: Thermafit® Chillers Provide Oak Hill with Future-Ready HVAC Solutions

“Thermafit® Air-Cooled Modular chillers are incredibly versatile,” said Jordan Griggs, Strategic Account Manager at Trane. “First of all, they’re modular, so the units can be stacked on top of each other, and that gave Oak Hill a lot of flexibility in terms of future growth. We were able to deliver the capacity Oak Hill needed for the tournament. If at some point they decide they need more they can just add another unit, no additional space necessary.”

Ultimately Trane installed three new Thermafit® Air-Cooled Modular chillers, which the team had up and running in time for the practice round of the PGA Championship. When the tournament officially kicked off and the cameras went on, the new system was tweaked and optimized. Everything was working perfectly.

Achieving Excellence as a Team for a World-Class Event

One of the keys to the project’s success was ongoing communication that went on between Oak Hill, the club’s mechanical contractor, and Trane.

“The thing I love about this story is that we not only identified a unique solution, but we also got it done as a team, under a tight deadline, for a world class sporting event,” said Griggs. “We also were mindful of cost and preparing for future enhancements.”

"We look forward to continuing our partnership with Trane as we have exciting upgrades on the horizon and upcoming tournaments, including the 2027 U.S. Amateur,” said Ellis.