Who am I? (south Jersey - Ballamor)

[Mike_Cirba]

I’m a course located in south Jersey, benefiting from stiff Atlantic breezes, located within the Pinelands region, and on mostly sandy soil.

Even though the region is mostly flattish, I’m fortunate enough to benefit from some fairly significant natural elevation change.

I offer ample and generously wide fairways with scatterings of sprawling bunkers creating the predominant strategies of the holes.  

The few natural looking ponds serve only as easily avoided lateral hazards (unless one wants to challenge them for strategic advantage) and only a single wetland comes into direct play.   The longest forced carry on the entire golf course is  about 100 yards from the 6700 yard blue tees.  

Although stands of pines line each fairway, the clearings are so wide that they rarely come into play.   Instead, the primary lateral danger is ankle-high yellow fescue that creates a lovely, if daunting perimeter defense.

From the tippy tips, I’m just shy of 7100 yards, roughly 6700 from the blues, 6250 from the whites.   The gold and red tees are 5900 and 5200 yard respectively.

Within those total yardages is significant variety with three short par fours playing 299, 347, and 312 from the blues and some quite long ones playing 430, 438, 417, and 430.   The par fives range from gambling, accessibly reachable in two holes (522 and 501 yards)like to long brutes like the 625 yard 5 (from the tips), or the uphill one that plays 578 from the tips.

The par threes range from 160 to 223 and the mix of holes overall flows well with the possible exception being one stretch where there are 4 par threes within 9 holes, but I’m not sure one realizes that while playing.

The greens are uniformly large with lots of broad internal contour and slope, often times presenting “greens within a green” challenges that permit multiple hole locations and lots of strategic flexibility and variety.   Many of the approaches are contoured as well, and can either be an ally or something to avoid depending on the type of shot attempted.  A number of greens fall off on the sides or behind into low-cut swales serving as short-game, or chipping areas where one can try any number of recovery options.  

There is little in the way of obtrusive man-made shaping, no unsightly mounds lining fairways, a considerable amount of internal fairway shaping that is consistent with the overall feel of the property.   On those holes that are the least rich from a natural feature standpoint, there seems to be a greater use of bunkering but on holes blessed with natural features and/or elevation changes, the natural contours are generally presented without fuss.

There are at least two places where an approach to a green is largely blind, and it is clear on first playing that this is a course where local knowledge of the course’s subtleties would increase with each playing.  

Who am I?  

[Dan Herrmann]

Hidden Creek (C&C)?

[JeffTodd]

Have a ball with this one.

[Mike_Cirba]

Let me narrow it down...I'm a private, golf-only club.

[Powell Arms]

I know you are not Twisted Dunes.

Seaview Pines course, Toomey & Flynn 1929?

[Mike_Cirba]

Dan,

Good guess, but no cigar.

Powell,

Bad, silly guess on TD.     And nope...the Pines at Seaview is public.

Jeff,

Please tell me about bland, featureless public golf.   I bet we would commiserate nicely.  

[Michael Blake]

Ballamor ?

[Kalen Braley]

Wildwood Country Club??

[Powell Arms]

Dan,

Good guess, but no cigar.

Powell,

Bad, silly guess on TD.     And nope...the Pines at Seaview is public.

Jeff,

Please tell me about bland, featureless public golf.   I bet we would commiserate nicely.  

You hadn't yet said private.  In that case, Galloway National is my guess.  Can't be Greate Bay - no pines.

(and, yes, TD was what jumped to mind as the one course I knew it wasn't when you said "There is little in the way of obtrusive man-made shaping, no unsightly mounds lining fairways, a considerable amount of internal fairway shaping that is consistent with the overall feel of the property.  ")

[Kalen Braley]

LinWood Country Club

[JeffTodd]

Jeff,

Please tell me about bland, featureless public golf.   I bet we would commiserate nicely.  

Upon reading the title of this thread I was going to guess Pitman, straight away. (I mean, it's just a matter of time before we have that well deserved Pitman thread). But then once I opened and read it I knew I was on the wrong side of the state. I did quickly figure out Ballamor (have a ball), but I didn't want to kill the thread too quickly.

I guess you could say that my knowledge isn't limited to bland, featureless, public golf....only my expertise.

[Mike_Cirba]

Ding, ding, ding...

Yes, Jeff & Michael...Ballamor it is...nicely done.

Now, the question I'm trying to figure out is this.

Why, given the description of the very positive attributes that I provided, does the course fly so far under the radar?

I mean, it's not even in Matt Ward's 25 best courses in the state of NJ, which admittedly has some stiff competition.

Still, I don't think I've heard anything about the course here previously, which seems odd given the amount of contributors from the NE corridor, as well as the amount of discussion Hidden Creek nearby elicited.

Anyone want to outline their impressions?

[Dan Herrmann]

Mike,
I sure don't know much about it.  I'm not a big fan of Ault, Clark, and Associates, though.

And, boy, their website is way out of date  

[Powell Arms]

Mike,

You're correct.  It definitely flies below the radar.  In fact, I don't think I have ever heard of someone discussing the course, either around Philly or on GCA.com.  Not that it means much what I have heard, but I've heard plenty about Hidden Creek and Galloway, two of the newer neighbors of Ballamor.

Curious.

[Mike Benham]

Ding, ding, ding...

That should be "Bada Bing Bada Bing" ...

[Michael Blake]

Mike,

Lucky guess on my part.  I only played it once about a year after it opened, maybe 5 years ago as a guest of a rater.

As I think back, I do remember enjoying the par 3's.  But that's about all I can recall about the course.  

Would like to hear comments from those who have played it a few times.  It might refresh my memory.

[Mike Sweeney]

Mike,

Very interesting. It is a gap in the South Jersey resume along with Galloway. Thanks for the surgical review but did you like it?  

[Mike_Cirba]

Before getting into more details, I would add that there is NO real estate component to the course and it's built on over 350 wooded acres.

[Mike_Cirba]

However, despite those seeming advantages, it's difficult to call it a "core" routing as can hopefully be seen at the following link;

http://tinyurl.com/2f92j3

[Powell Arms]

Mike, is this an old aerial, or is the course that spread out?

[Mike_Cirba]

Powell,

Thanks for the technical assist!  

This aerial is correct and accurate as presented and I think is a great example of the type of difficulties faced by modern architects, even when on the face of it a project and site may have many advantages.

The course was built on something like 500 acres, but is heavily intersected by a wetlands system that is the headwaters for English Creek, which flows directly into Little Egg Harbor.  

The protected wetlands required setback buffers of 150’ on each side of the wetlands with no approval to clear flight lines for carries.  As such, the present configuration of holes requires wetland crossings (mostly via wooden bridges) six times during the course of the round.   To say that it interrupts the flow of the round or makes the course less walkable (despite the fact that the holes in each "quadrant" are quite nicely tied together in an intimate fashion) is a considerable understatement.

Still, despite this inherent disadvantage, to answer Mike Sweeney's question, Yes, I did enjoy the course a great deal, as did my playing partner (another GCAer who will likely weigh in but I don't want to put words in his mouth).  

And, in answer to Dan Hermann's thoughts on the work of Ault/Clark, I understand where you're coming from, but I would also mention that the course was almost solely the work of design associate Dan Schlegel, who has since moved on and now has his own design firm.  

I think too often we tend to paint the large architectural firms with too broad a brush, when often times a talented associate(s) is doing work that breaks the mold, or pushes the envelope.   In the past, for instance, I've cited the courses I've played that Rees Jones associate Steve Weisser largely designed, and let's not forget that Mike Strantz came from Tom Fazio's design shop, or that Kelly Moran worked for years with Robert Von Hagge.  

So, in that spirit, I'm still wondering why this course isn't better known.   My playing partner and I agreed that it's at least a Doak 5, and possibly even a 6, despite the inherent routing limitations.

[Steve_ Shaffer]

What's the other course in the aerial?

[Mike_Cirba]

Steve,

That would be Twisted Dune.

[Mike Sweeney]

So, in that spirit, I'm still wondering why this course isn't better known.   My playing partner and I agreed that it's at least a Doak 5, and possibly even a 6, despite the inherent routing limitations.

Mike,

I would guess for the simple reason that there are a bunch of public Doak 5 maybe 6's surrounding it (Renault, Twisted Dune, Seaview....) and then throw in private Hidden Creek and Galloway which sound like they stand above it, and then ACCC too. Is it substantially better than any of these? How about Greate Bay? It too is broken up (by roads and tunnels) but there are some pretty good holes out there. You see a bunch of advertisements for Ballamore in local papers, so I wonder how they are doing economically?

I still have not played Brigantine and have biked past for years for the triathlon there. It sounds more unique for The Shore?

[Mike Worth]

There are some good aspects to the course.  The greens and green complexes are very good and interesting.  And there are some very good holes.  I've only played a couple of times, but #17 (short par 4) and #18 (par 5) stand out.  And as another poster said, the par 3s are all very good.

Couple reasons why this course isn't a big hit.  First, the routing -- course is unwalkable. That's obvious from the aerial.  That's a deal-killer.

Next, there are a couple of weak holes.  The first par 5 on the back nine (#10?) is one of the worst Par 5s i've ever played.  One gets the feeling the architect ran out of room on that hole.  The other hole that bugs me is a short par 4 on the front where one hits a long iron tee shot to a very narrow landing area, then the hole dog-legs right where one hits a short iron uphill over water.  Yet another hole where I got the feeling they just ran out of room.