We took a drive out to Ringoes, NJ today to get together with Steve Scott and have a look at The Ridge, a Tom Fazio design.
I was VERY impressed with the golf course and the facilities. Let me get to the non-gca stuff first:
- Steve Scott is everything a PGA pro is supposed to be. Knowledgeable, friendly, caring, and proud of his club.
- The course is in a beautiful par[t of New Jersey with really nice elevation changes and great views.
- The Ridge is a non-equity club and the owner is active and present. He really "gets it".
- The clubhouse is a perfect compliment to the course. It just "fits" into the countryside. Rustic but classy.
- At 2:30, the course had a fair number of players. Some were walking with caddies, some were carting. All seemed very happy to be there.
- The practice area is HUGE and very well designed.
OK - onto the course itself:
- This course deserves a LOT more recognition than it seems to get. I thought the architecture was excellent and significantly adds to the player's experience.
- The five par 3's are really cool. Fazio had a lot of room, and he built tees that provide quite different angles from similar distances. You could play the course for a week and have a different look every day.
- The fairways are nicely canted in such a way that placing a shot on the wrong slope will cause the player to have a significantly more difficult approach shot (for example, a cut off a draw slope)
- Bunker placement is excellent. There seems to be the perfect amount of bunkering out there and I think they're in the right places.
- Fazio makes excellent use of elevation changes. There is a skyline green and there are some thrilling drop shot opportunites
- Fazio uses the native red shale rock formations in a really nice artistic way. The outcroppings do not intrude on the play, but do demonstrate that you're in a geologically unique area.
- Back Brook meanders through the property and is an important feature for the golfer
- The shaping of the greens is fantastic. Most greens are fairly large, but they're certainly not flat.
- There are some real "hero shots" out there, but Fazio always seems to provide a nice bail-out for the higher handicap golfer. To me, this looks like a "easy bogey"/"hard par" type of course (a very good thing to me)
- The course is extremely well conditioned.
The club is a member of GAP and MGA, so I urge all NY/Philly guys to see what they think for themselves. I came away thinking that I'd love to get back and play again and again. I think that's about as big a compliment I can give to a course.