(Course #2 on a trip to NJ and NY before my deployment to Iraq. All pics on iPhone 4, sorry for the bad quality. Big ups to redanman and Director of Golf Scott Paris for allowing me to experience this gem. I apologize for the length of post, but I think you guys will like it)
This week's focus was cultural immersion to the Iraqi people. Without going into a large amount of detail, trust me when I say that middle eastern culture is slightly different from our own. The Arabic culture--and more specifically that of the Iraqis--is an extremely complex hierarchy of (in order of importance) religion, family, tribe, and nationality. You are more likely to hear an Iraqi define themselves as Sunni or Shia, and then name their tribe; than to hear them say "Anee Iraqi" (I am an Iraqi). For instance, Saddam would always call himself, al Tikriti. Or, "of Tikrit". The entire culture is based directly on two things, 1) allegiance to religion and family and 2) the concept of
wasta or "saving face". EVERY decision is rooted in these principles. The honor of women (sexually) is directly tied to family wasta and honor. You would NEVER ask an Iraqi, "how is your wife doing?" It would be more along the lines of "how is your family doing?" Various gestures are extremely offensive. Thumbs up and showing the bottom of ones foot being two of the more common no-no's. They are very proud of their history and have a tendency to remind Americans that they have been a civilized culture for thousands of years longer than we have.
In other avenues here in the US of A, there lives and breathes golf courses in this vein of existence. Not to say they are antiquated, far from it. In privileged areas of this country we have small, intimate gems of golf that--though prestigious--get far too little attention for the great golf courses they are. They are often built across (as one GCA'er has put it) voluptuous pieces of land that present both feast and famine for an architect. These clubs are in the old guard of American golf. And like Arabic culture, they are far more accommodating than initially thought.
Plainfield Country Club in north New Jersey is one such club. To say that Plainfield is underrated would be a stretch. It occupies some pretty lofty air in a few of the ratings. On
Golfweek's Top 100 Classic list, it bests names like Piping Rock, Maidstone, Yale, and the nearby Baltusrol. Yet the feeling remains that this course doesn't get it's due.
When playing golf at Plainfield this past Sunday as a single, I was afforded the opportunity to ruminate incoherently for three hours while under a spell. Imagine being plunked down alone into rural Germany while a hausfrau cooks the best schnitzel you've ever had and speaks in deutsch. You understand very little of what she is saying, but she accommodating, warm, and her food is tasty. I always had a feeling that I was seeing something very foreign to me, yet it was very, very good.
A view of the first green lets you know that this is no ordinary "ODG" course. In fact, there were dozens of moments during the day when I lamented that modern architecture sees very few green complexes like those at Plainfield.
The holes that stood out the most in this respect were the par 3's at #6 and #11. Both hole's green complexes were marvels of classic engineering. Hole #6 is a mid-length par 3, in which the front half of the green slopes severely
away from the player. Here is the tee shot.
The tee shot itself isn't so menacing. Except that the green looks perched on a ridge, is all carry, and all but the best shots will be kicked forward to the back of the green or into the blind back bunker!! How many architects today would build a par 3 in this manner? Here is another view from
behind the green. The slope nearest the oak tree is the front of green and is three feet higher than the foreground.
#11 is another green site that you'd be hard pressed to find by a modern architect. Some say it is the shortest par 5 in New Jersey. The green itself is placed--you guessed it--on another ridge. It is short in length (116 yards) and the green slopes severely towards the tee, with a large false front. Getting the ball to the hole isn't enough. You must get the ball to the hole without much spin. As learned after landing the ball pin high and watching it slam into reverse, all the way down into the bunker.
Another view of #11.
Continuing the theme of "differing but still great" at Plainfield, are the par 5's. I would venture to say that no where in golf has a set of three shotters as varied and well thought out as the four par 5's at Plainfield. I was absolutely stunned at how well they cross the land, how different their green complexes are, and how they still fit into the property. Upon further review, you find that 6 holes all run parallel to one another. 2, 6, 7, 8, 12, and 16 run next to each other. Four of those six are par 5's, and not one is alike. Possibly only at Merion and Wannamoissett has a site so small as Plainfield been used so well. Here are some random shots of those holes.
#5 from just off the tee. The hole--though level--really plays uphill overall
#5 from the layup area. Sort of blind...very fun
#12 tee shot downhill. Getting over the ridge is the goal.
Which I did!!
To a great green with a hogsback running laterally.
The 16th greensite and 17th tee behind on the par 5 16th. One of the greats in golf.
To say that I enjoy and was impressed with the three shotters at Plainfield is understating it a bit. Tommy N. listened to me yammer on about them on the phone long enough for me to drive 30 miles of NJ turnpike. The weakest one may be #8, and it was on a stretch of holes from 4-9 as the second best 6 hole stretch I've played this year. It has a green wedged between two high points on a mini-ridge and has a 7th at Ballyneal style kickboard on the left side. Simply incredible!
It should be noted that Gil Hanse has done some insanely great work here to remove non-conforming bunkers, uncover original ones, remove the ponds on a few holes, recover lost green surfaces, and open up the golf course from a tree standpoint. Any recognition he gets from the renovation is well deserved.
The course does have a weakness or two. The "tunnel" holes of 13-15 (especially 13) are in the low lying flat area to the southeast of the property and seem to be more of an afterthought (which they were). 15 is above the rest of those. but 13 an 14 are, IMO, the weakest holes on a golf course full of good to great ones. Also, the 18th hole suffers a bit. The green complex is pretty solid, but the hole shape and it's visuals aren't in keeping with the expansiveness of 2/3's of the golf course. These blemishes aren't ignorable, but they don't take away from how engaging the 1-12 stretch is. Or how good 16 and 17 are.
I will go on record here as saying that I believe Plainfield to get far less talk than it deserves. I don't know what it is about the golf course, but it doesn't seem to stir emotion like many other courses in this part of the country. What Donald Ross built here so many years ago is worth studying for a new generation of architects. If the site were twice as large, it's heaving nature would be perfect for golf. But the fact is that this course was routed on difficult--though not severe--terrain on a site of less than 130 acres. The fairways play very wide and I never felt hemmed-in at any point. The contours of the land were used to near perfection to separate golf holes while retaining a sense of unity when looking about. Tee boxes are close to preceding greens, but never crowded. How is it that this is possible? I really don't know, and there lies the fun.
Those serious about golf architecture would do themselves well to study this golf course. The green complexes, routing efficiency, and general "ballsiness" are from a bygone era. In my mind, it's an entirely different culture much like the one I will soon enter. It espouses old school feelings about shot penalization, strategy, and recovery. We here on GCA would do well to commune with more classic courses of this type.
(more photos)
#7 approach to punchbowl-ish green
Looking up 2 and 12 fairway from behind 12 green. Voluptuous??
Clubhouse from right side of #9 fairway
Ross' Vision.
Me on the NJ turnpike returning home. It's dangerous here in Jersey.
