Deal Golf Club (USA) playing the original layout

[David Cronheim]

Fellow GCAers,

I thought some of you might be interested in helping me or in participating in an article I'm writing for the New Jersey State Golf Association's magazine, NJSGA Golf. For those of you who don't know, Deal Golf Club in Deal, NJ was built as a nine-hole course in 1895 with the club founded and an additional 9 holes added in 1898. In 1915, financial difficulties forced the club's owner to sell three holes to neighboring Hollywood Golf Club (http://www.golfclubatlas.com/courses-by-country/usa/hollywood-golf-club/hollywood-golf-club-pgii/). These holes, originally 4, 5, and 6 at Deal currently play as their 16th, 14th, and 15th, respectively.

In 1915, Deal brought in Donald Ross to transform the remaining 15 holes into 18. Ross rerouted a handful of holes and changed the finishing holes to their current par 4, par 3 configuration.

Sometime this month or in September, I will be playing the course as close as possible to the original layout. I'll start at #1 at Deal, then play the three holes on Hollywood, come back across the street and play the holes as closely as possible to their original routings. For those of you who have played the course, that would be roughly from the current 4th tee to the 8th green, from behind the current 8th green to the current 6th green, and up the hill back towards the halfway house from the current 7th women's tee to the current 9th green. Remarkably, there are no large trees blocking the routing.

My only issue is playing 17 as a par 3 and 18 as a par 4 since the original 17th green is gone and it would be difficult to play 18 as a par 4 because there is no fairway.

If anyone has any suggestions, has done anything similar, or would be interested in participating, let me know. As much as possible, I intend to follow the original routings on a 1905 map of the course I found, but think it's best to play from teeboxes and to greens wherever possible so it's not a cross-country style event, but a real round. It should be quite a fun morning. Thoughts?

[Mike Cirba]

David,

I'm assuming you have permission of both clubs to make this historic trip, but depending on the day, I'd love to join you.

It sounds very exciting, and Deal was very highly regarded at the turn of last century, as I'm sure you know.

[David Cronheim]

David,

I'm assuming you have permission of both clubs to make this historic trip, but depending on the day, I'd love to join you.

It sounds very exciting, and Deal was very highly regarded at the turn of last century, as I'm sure you know.

That's correct. I'm a member at Deal and our pro shop staff has arranged it with Hollywood. It'll probably be a very early morning since we have to get out to play the reconfigured holes before anyone is on them or risk getting hit/hitting them. Might also be fun to play an afternoon 18 on the current track and compare.

[Mike Cirba]

David,

Early would be great depending on the day.    Please let me know once you arrange a date/time and I'm hopeful I can join in the fun.

Thanks!

[Mark McKeever]

David,

Sounds like a blast.  Let me know what dates and hopefully I can join in.

Thanks,

Mark

[Pat Burke]

Was searching for something and came across this.
David, did you ever play what remained of the original Deal course?

[Stephen Northrup]

I'd be interested as well. Played both courses a couple of years ago and thought they were great fun.

[David Cronheim]

Was searching for something and came across this.
David, did you ever play what remained of the original Deal course?

Pat,

Hollywood wasn't receptive to the idea so I ended up just playing what amounted to an early morning cross-country at Deal and had played Hollywood earlier in the summer (I'd played there quite a few times before besides). It was fun, but sadly since then the decision by Deal to retain Rees Jones has resulted in the course moving even farther away from Ross and Van Etten's original design. It seems to me as if they're absolutely determined to beat the classic architects out of the golf course. It's a sad state of affairs for one of the oldest clubs in the country, but all you need to know about the direction the club has chosen is that all the great black and white photographs of the club in the early 1900's (including a photo of a visit by J.H. Taylor and an original 1905 scorecard) hang in the service hallway seen by absolutely no one. On the other hand, the grill room is full of memorabilia from other Donald Ross courses. It's a choice I simply can't wrap my head around.

DBC

[MCirba]

David,

I'm sorry to hear about that recent decision.   Deal sounds like a special place and always looked terrific from what I could see from the road, but hopefully someday it will get a more authentic restoration by someone with sensitivity to its historic aura.

[David Cronheim]

David,

I'm sorry to hear about that recent decision.   Deal sounds like a special place and always looked terrific from what I could see from the road, but hopefully someday it will get a more authentic restoration by someone with sensitivity to its historic aura.

Mike,

I hope so too. The work done by Rees was not AWFUL. It's typically generic and uninspired. At the meeting where the plan was presented, I got into a heated discussion with Rees in front of the entire membership. I said "Mr. Jones, I heard you use the phrase "Ross-like" three times, "inspired by Ross" four times, and "in the style of Ross" twice. Could you please tell the membership why we should settle for "Ross-like" instead of simply restoring the course." Needless to say, I was not a popular figure at the meeting.

However, Deal has some great bones and the course of my childhood was actually much more akin to some of the Surrey sandbelt courses than the lush, green track it is today. The board got so concerned with the course being 6,350 yards that they've done everything they can to lengthen and toughen the course at the expense of making it a truly fun course. Dare I say it, but the course actually had a lot of Merion-esque features and very much had that feel to it with several quarries making up most of the elevation change and long, wispy grasses atop bunkers. With a proper restoration, it could have turned out being a lot more like Mid-Pines or Seaview (Bay) and would have been a true gem. Instead it's a 6,400 yard parkland course in the style of no one in particular where most of the more interesting holes have been neutered by identically-shaped kidney bunkers that do little to add more than an elementary level of strategic interest.

Deal could be a case study in how a board can do everything wrong to a classic golf course and hardly anyone notices because the end result is a course that is good, but generic. This must have been how so many classic courses were ruined. In the end they look more like what people see on the PGA Tour every week, therefore it must be better.

[Pat Burke]

I pretty much grew up caddying at and playing Deal.  I also worked on the maintenance crew for awhile before moving to California.
Deal always suffered a bit from the revolving door greens chairmen.  Trees added and bunker styles changed.  I remember the bunkers being changed from sand faces, to more flat bottomed with grass down to faces (mostly fairway bunkers) and then a new committee took over and brought back the sand faces.  This all took place in a few years.
12,13,15,17, and 18 look very different, and it really is starting to look like a Frankenstein course, with multiple ideas, and styles thrown together. 
I wish they would just stick to a plan and go with it, rather than changing paths all the time.
Personally, I loved 1960's-early70's version of Deal

[MCirba]

David,

I understand too well what you mean.   However, hope springs eternal and I've seen quite a number of times in the last two decades where a so-so architectural renovation is followed by something much more authentic.   Ridgewood is a good example. 

[David Cronheim]

I pretty much grew up caddying at and playing Deal.  I also worked on the maintenance crew for awhile before moving to California.
Deal always suffered a bit from the revolving door greens chairmen.  Trees added and bunker styles changed.  I remember the bunkers being changed from sand faces, to more flat bottomed with grass down to faces (mostly fairway bunkers) and then a new committee took over and brought back the sand faces.  This all took place in a few years.
12,13,15,17, and 18 look very different, and it really is starting to look like a Frankenstein course, with multiple ideas, and styles thrown together. 
I wish they would just stick to a plan and go with it, rather than changing paths all the time.
Personally, I loved 1960's-early70's version of Deal

Pat,

I totally agree with you. I'm a bit younger than you so my first memories of Deal are from the late 80's, but as a child I remember always feeling that Deal had more in common with the courses I saw on TV during the British Open than the then-common US Open venue. The course had a quirkiness to it that made it a lot of fun, particularly in and around the "ditch" on #12/#13. I enjoyed all the little pot bunkers, the chocolate drop bunker on #2, etc.

I've mentioned it elsewhere on the site, but the real tragedy of the rennovation was what happened on #12/#13, which was the heart of the course in my opinion. #12 was a fantastic par 5 with the diagonal cross-hazard ditch playing such affecting the 2nd shot. #13 was a Van Etten prototype "short" hole very similar to #11 at Wykagyl - a short par 3 shot over a ravine to an impossibly tiny green ringed by a series of smallish pot bunkers.

C'est la vie. The odds of returning to a more fun, sandbelt-style look are very slim in my opinion.

[Pat Burke]

As a kid, it was always funny when we had tournaments and qualifiers.
Guys would play practice rounds and come in the shop and tell my dad
(head pro) that the course was so short, guys will shoot zero.
My dad would just laugh and watch as guys would come off the course shaking their
heads after shooting higher scores than they anticipated.
Tight tee shots, small greens, and some nasty little green contours kept you honest.


Wish they would get the guys that work at Mountain Ridge to come in and develop a long term
plan