Pine Hill Golf Club

[Chip Gaskins]

Anyone play Pine Hill lately?  What is the general consensus on the course?  The pictures look pretty solid.  Looks rugged for Fazio (which is good IMO).

Chip

[Mike Sweeney]

Probably one of my Top 5 biggest disappoinments. Visually it looks great in pics and oh how I wanted those snobby golf raters Cirba and Redanman to be wrong, but they were not.

Drive to an upper tee, drive to a lower fairway that has been built up and back up to a green, drive to next tee and repeat. There is a reason that former ski hills should not become golf courses.

It has some fun shots and pieces are very good, but the package as a whole is Doak 4.5 for a walker and 5.5 if you are a cart ball guy.

[Joe Bausch]

I played it again back in June and started this thread:

http://golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php/topic,40276.0/

I really believe the course is a bit underrated by many raters b/c:

1.  It was compared to PV when it opened (and is geographically very close to it).
2.  It is a Tom Fazio design.

Simple as that.

In an ideal world, I would ask to play the back nine twice.  That is how much I like the second nine.

[Tom_Doak]

Or is that how much you dislike the first nine, and all those long transitions between holes?

[Joe Bausch]

Or is that how much you dislike the first nine, and all those long transitions between holes?

Since I'm a fan of a course being walkable, and the back nine at PH is reasonably walked, the long transitions on the front is one of my criticisms with it.  And as individual holes, I think there are more very good holes on the back (10, 12, 14, especially 17) than the front (3 and 7).

[Matt_Ward]

For those who dislike the eye-candy elements of TF you won't find a better example than Pine Hill if you are in the Northeast. I will say this though -- the uphill par-4 9th and the downhill par-4 10th are the only clear reasons to go to the course.

Conversely, if you want to see a first rate TF layout head further east to the AC area and sample Galloway National -- night and day difference between the two.

[Jason Walker]

Drive to an upper tee, drive to a lower fairway that has been built up and back up to a green, drive to next tee and repeat. There is a reason that former ski hills should not become golf courses.

Mike Sweeney,
Not to nit-pick, but other than Number 3, Number 10 (Par 4's) and Number 13 and Number 16 (Par 3's), what holes play downhill?

I totally agree with Tom Doak--the front nine routing is disjointed, no question, which is a shame because I think Number 7 and Number 9 are particularly good holes, as is the Par 3 Number 2.

I'm an outgoing member there but I really enjoyed the golf course and over time it really grew on me.  It was a lot of fun to play and to be honest I never got tired of playing it.  It's a shame they never quite figured out the membership thing as iI felt it was a nice contrast to many of the older, classic designs in the area.  Is it the most interesting architecturally?  No, but a fun place to play and be challenged, yes.

[Matt_Ward]

Jason:

You are right -- the potential for something really good could have been accomplished at Pine Hill. Like I said before -- there are a few holes of note but it suffers because of the ho-hum nature of so many others.

#9 and #10 are both well done and two of the best public back-to-back par-4 holes you can play in NJ.