Elkridge Club

[Lawrence Largent]

Well I just as well start with the first club we played a wonderful Seth Raynor Elkridge Club in the northern part of Balitmore. I'm not sure if this peice of property lends itself for a prototypical Raynor course. Most Raynor courses i've played has had a little more movement in the property where you have alot more of the deeper bunkers you see at Camargo and Yeamans. Elkridge was my fifth Raynor course and I enjoyed this one just as much as the other four. The 2nd green was a very nice thumb print with a double plateau right behind it for the 11th green. The 13th was one of the better Biarritz I've played  I tend to lean more toward the whole thing being mowed as green to the front part and swale being fairway and the back part mowed as green. What I did like was the double tee used for the two drivable par fours number 5 and 14. The only real let down was the Redan again this piece of property didn't lend itself to a great Redan and with the right conditions the 17th could work. You could see where they had reclaimed alot of the squareness to the greens and they had totally resurfaced some of them. All in all when the work is complete I would have to say this would be quite a gem and overall a  fun course to play with some really great holes and scoring possibilities. If anyone has any questions please feel free to ask and maybe I could answer them. As soon as I figure out how to I'll post pics of almost every hole.

[Craig Disher]

I haven't seen the course in a couple years but from what I remember, the 17th, the Redan, is not a Raynor original. A member told me that it was a new hole built when they rearranged the course to add a larger practice area. It's not on a 1938 aerial of the course. Brad Klein might be able to add the details if he's following this thread.

[wsmorrison]

Lawrence,

Craig mentioned that the Redan at Elkridge was not Raynor.  Even so, a property not lending itself to a great Redan didn't stop Raynor before.  Isn't it more accurate to say that Macdonald was more inclined to use the land as found for holes like the Redan (for example at NGLA, The Creek and his NLE 14th at Shinnecock on the same site as Flynn's 7th)?  Raynor on the other hand built non-natural Redan holes at Fox Chapel, CC Charleston and elsewhere that could have been built anywhere.

[Brad Klein]

The Redan was created by Brian Silva out of a mediocre hole that was never designed by Raynor but by Ed Ault, I think, when the club created the range and added two out-of-character holes (6-7) on the front.

Silva then converted the hole, no. 17, into a Redan in 2004-2005 during some restoration work. The Elkridge Redan is pretty weak, with the front bunker being no more than 2 feet deep. The whole Redan is tame, in marked contrast to the rest of the course, where 15 of the holes, esp. greenside, convey a lot of Raynoresque qualities. The two obvious outliers are those new holes, 6-7.

[david h. carroll]

Mr. Klien--  I rather enjoy our little Silva Redan.  Form the back box is is a daunting shot where you'd better get the yardage adn angle right or else your in the front or back bunker and always short sided due to the narrowness/small size of the green.  

Silva did a tremendous amount of bunker and tee work, created 6 new greens--the thumbrpint #2, the Road #9, the double plateau #11, the Biartiz, #13, the punchbowl # 15 and the Redan #17.  The other 12 greens he restored by returning them to their original sizes (larger and amny squared off).

One day perhaps we'll get rid of the tennis and range and restore the two holes which now comprise such space.

[Lawrence Largent]

[ed_getka]

Lawrence,
    How much of a test was this course for a player of your caliber? What is the standout feature of the course, routing, greensites, etc..? Thanks for posting.

[redanman]

That is one of the more fun-looking Biarritz complexes I've seen.

How wide and how deep is the swale?  From the photo (can be deceiving) it liiks not too wide and rather deep.

Thanks.

[Glenn Spencer]

That is the best looking golf hole I have ever seen. That is just amazingly cool. Where is this place? Near Baltimore? Can we please see some more pictures?

[david h. carroll]

Glenn--it straddles the Baltimore City and Baltimore County line so 1/2 in northern Balto city and 1/2 in central balto county.

RedanMan--the swale is about 6 feet across at the top and 3 to 4 feet deep.  Another great feature is the thumbprint in the front of the green.  I think I paced the green at 75 yards total last year.


It is a great little place and site of this year's Maryland Amateur.

[Jim Franklin]

The swale is fairly deep and you could drive a small car through it so it is plenty wide.

If they could fix #s 6&7, it would be a lot of fun to play. I thought Silva did a terrific job here. It is so much better now than before he got there.

[Glenn Spencer]

David,

I have some friends in Maryland, I will have to check on an address finagling and see if I can't get myself eligible for that one. I am really looking forward to seeing some more pictures. That biarritz looks fabulous and better than the ones that I have played.

[david h. carroll]

Glenn--sorry, qualifier was about a month ago.

[david h. carroll]

From this month's Golf Styles DC edition written by a member of the Treehouse

http://www.golfstyles.net/washington/200701theelkridgeclub.html

[Andy Hughes]

David, I read the article a few days ago when my copy arrived at home. I was surprised that I had never even heard of a course of that age and quality so nearby.

[david h. carroll]

andy--it's a sleepy hidden  gem

[Jonathan Cummings]

And David (hand to head) you never call me!    JC

[Jimmy Muratt]

The par 3 13th at Elkridge is one of my very favorite examples of the Biarritz template.  The hole is played from an elevated tee and it is an absolute blast to see your ball land just short of the swale, disappear, and then reappear as it chases to a back hole location.  

I enjoy Biarritz holes where the swale is part of the green.  That is why the examples at Elkridge and Mountain Lake are two of my favorites.  I have yet to see Yale, but I'm sure I'd love that one as well.  Having a long putt through the swale is a blast, even though it's a great challenge.  A Biarritz hole where the front portion is maintained as fringe or fairway doesn't make sense to me.  I know it's easier and cheaper to maintain, but it takes away the character of the hole.

[Jonathan Cummings]

BIG difference in opinion here in the treehouse.  I posted a photo of Elkridge's 13th green a couple of months ago and the comments were anything but positive (I believe it was the same photo that was used in the GolfStyles article).  In my book Elkridge's 13th is a marvelous hole and can not be more fun to play.  BTW - photos can't bring out the sense of how elevated the tee is wrt the green.  This is a seriously downhill par three.

JC

[david h. carroll]

JOnathan--sorry, didn't know I owed you a call

and yes the hole was unfairly criticized from your previous photo which I believe was different from the one in the magazine....very nice article and thank you.

[Mike Hoak]

Like Andy, I had no idea this course even existed until reading the GolfStyles article this month.  I hope to have the opportunity to play it one day.

[Andy Hughes]

Mike, yeah, but I don't get out much so I have a good excuse. Also, David didn't call me either so I have lots of good excuses.  

Jonathan or David or Jimmy--I don't believe I have ever played a Biarritz but..if one of the preferred shots is a low shot that scampers through the trough to back pins, wouldn't an elevated tee make that type of shot awfully hard to play?

[Matt Frey, PGA]

Bumping an old thread for some new pictures. I had the pleasure playing Elkridge this past weekend with a fellow PGA member and a Baltimore assistant superintendent. As previously stated in this thread, it's not a typical Raynor course compared to his more well-known designs, in that the property wasn't as large and most everything seemed to be on a slightly smaller scale.


For instance, some greens (Nos. 3, 8, 9, 11, 12, 13, 15) were very big, as I have seen on other Raynor courses, but others were quite small. Also, some of the template features weren't as noticeable. For instance, the Double Plateau was muted, the Punchbowl design wasn't very bold, and the Maiden green was, well, a bit of a letdown; I was struggling to notice the typical Maiden features. However, these were all still pretty good greens, just not what I was expecting, which may be a downside of templates. Overall, the greens are excellent. The Thumbprint on No. 2's green is outstanding.


Nos. 6 and 7 (the two additions after the range was expanded and tennis courts were added), were the weakest holes by far; No. 6 was worse than No. 7, but both (and the whole course for that matter) would greatly improve with a little tree care.


The Biarritz probably gets the most attention, and I completely understand why. I have not played a ton of Biarritz holes in my short golfing career, but this one was probably the most unique. It plays significantly downhill and features a full-length green. The swale is fairly severe, but not unfair. I have personally never seen a Biarritz with a Thumbprint, but this one features a significant one in the front half of the green. Even better was that when we played it, the hole location was in the back of the green, so I had fun trying to hit my first shot to the back of the green, and (because we had the course to ourselves) even took a putt from the front of the green and a bunker shot from the front right bunker to the back hole location. It was a blast.


Lastly, it was cool to play the Road Hole (No. 9) as it actually features a road (drive to the clubhouse) behind the green. It was the first Road Hole I've played with an actual road!


Overall, a fun golf course. I certainly wouldn't classify it as a "drop everything and go see it" course, but if you are fascinated by Raynor designs as I am, it's good to see.


Below are a few select photographs from my round on Saturday, Oct. 10. We played in the mid-late afternoon, so the shadows were pretty long, making picture taking a little difficult.


No. 2 - Thumbprint (back of green)


No. 3 - Alps (top of the hill)


No. 4 - Eden (tee)


Nos. 5 and 14 - Fade and Knoll (tee)


No. 8 - Short (tee)


No. 9 - Road (behind green)


No. 11 - Double Plateau (back of green)


No. 12 - Long (right of green)


No. 13 - Biarritz (tee)


No. 13 - Biarritz (back right of green)


No. 13 - Biarritz (back of green)


No. 15 - Punchbowl (back of green)


No. 17 - Redan (behind green)

[Eric Hammerbacher]

I had the pleasure of playing Elkridge a few days ago and was really impressed.   It was my first Raynor  (collective gasp!), and from reading so much about his courses on here I was still blown away by some of the features, especially the greens and surrounding areas.  I don't have anything to compare one template hole to another, so I'm going to wait until I play some more Raynor courses, but I will say I enjoyed the templates that I did recognize and I'll have a starting point for comparisons in the future.  I've learned looking a pictures of holes on here just doesn't give you a sense of the scale and the topography of a place until you play it.

I absolutely loved the Biarritz, and with reading the "over the swale at Yale" thread before I played it, I paid attention to some features I might have missed.   Like Matt, I'm curious about the front of the green and the thumbprint.  Maybe someone can chime in, but are there any other Biarritz holes with a thumbprint in the front of the green, and what is the purpose off it on a Biarritz specifically?    I know Brian Silva redid the green a while back, did he add it or was it always there?  With 240 out and a downhill shot, my ball landed on the upslope of the thumbprint and died there.  I hit a few balls from the tee with different clubs to try to run one back through the swale but the downhill nature of the hole and thumbprint made it very tough to get a ball to release.  However, I had a fun putt up the thumbprint down the swale and up again to the back hole location. 

Overall the course and the greens in particular were an absolute blast. 

It was such a cool, low key place, with great locker rooms and an authentic old-school feel.  For some reason it reminded me of South Hills CC in Pittsburgh, another great old club key-holed in a bustling city with sirens and cars buzzing by while you're  playing.  Both have tee boxes pushed right up against fences, close tee to green walks, and some creative routing with approach shots crossing over the main entrance road to the club. 

[Britt Rife]

The threads that deal with Elkridge point out that holes 6 and 7 are not Raynor holes and do not fit the character of the golf course.  I had the pleasure of playing there earlier this week and I wanted to add a little nuance to the criticism of no. 7.  Ok, I played it well, so I suppose that might encourage me to offer a positive view.  In any event, the drive is straight up a hill (but then again, so is no. 1) and the second shot on this 3 shotter is nothing I recall with any particular admiration, but the approach is neat.  This is a Lion Mouth hole, like the 15th at CC of Charleston--a big, nasty central bunker, with a crescent green encasing it behind, sloping toward this fronting bunker.  It is less dramatic than Charleston's jaw-dropping 15th, but very "Raynorian" nevertheless.


What a great course.  I had the good fortune that the pin placements on the par threes were in in the traditional locations and the way I played them conspired to reveal their classic traits: a low draw on the Redan that got near the back left pin; a tee shot to the green that went long over a front pin, revealing the Eden's maddening slope on the putt; a running shot to the Biarritz's front that disappeared in the green trough and scuttled to the back upper tier.  I missed the Short green, and chipped on to a flat part of the green, but had the presence of mind after holing out to reset my ball in a position that I could enjoy a contoured putt.


I also enjoyed the other templates, facing a short pitch over a road to a punchbowl green where I was short sided; flailing in the Road Hole bunker; missing the Elysian Fields with my drive on the Long, and ruing it as I observed just how perfect that placement would have been; and failing to deal adequately with the profound slope of the Thumbprint green and watching my putt nearly return to my feet.


It is a special pleasure to happen to play (even if not well) a classic course as to engage so directly with the architecture.