If your wanderings bring you to New Jersey come and see Springdale Golf Club in Princeton, NJ.
Springdale is one of the earliest golf clubs in the USA. A Historic routing which was renovated by William Flynn in 1926/27. Flynn took great interest in the project as his mentor Hugh Wilson was a Princeton graduate and former captain of the Princeton University Golf team before going on to route the golf course at Merion East.
I am a member and you can contact me if interested.
Malcolm,
I am a Princeton grad, but actually a lot more familiar with the Yale golf course. How good is Springdale?
Tim: { fyi; partially edited from another post }
Springdale is a fun members course to play on a regular basis. The site is beautiful - abutting portions of Princeton University, Princeton Theological Seminary, the Institute for Advanced Studies and P U Graduate college. It looks downright British. The symbol of the club is the Cleveland Tower that looms over the course, and provides an aiming focal point on several holes, . named after PU Trustee and US President Grover Cleveland. We have a walking culture and you can sling your bag or grab a trolley whenever you want and play a nine or a few holes. The William Flynn layout is just great, while compact, it is strategic and rolls nicely while still being pretty easy to walk, and at 6,400 yards is long enough to test all your shots without beating you up. The greens are special, interesting, tight, mostly small with quite a bit of break, and some interesting features including the bunkering. Missing greens wide can be really tough on the scorecard.
Come on a weekend and I may be able to have someone play the carillon bells in Cleveland Tower. All sorts of tunes will resonate over the course, classical, pop, I even played one Halloween Sunday and out came the theme from The Addams Family !
The club is traditional yet unpretentious. Hats off inside, no cargo pants, but we are not obsessive about rules compared to many clubs. Our new clubhouse is comfortable enough without being stuffy, and the view of the course and Tower from the grill room and porch is the best in town.
Enough bragging, I won’t even get into our history with connections to Hugh Wilson, Woodrow Wilson, Bill Campbell, or tell you which or our stone bridges has an asteroid rock. I will tell you the course is worth getting to know.
It is however - diametrically opposed to Yale. Somewhat short, in town, small greens, land rolls gently, and we are separate from PU. Also - Seth Raynor went to Princeton, but Colin Sheehan tells me he did not graduate.
Give Malcolm and/or I a call or send PM if you want to play, or join the Alumni event Friday of Re-unions.
Wm Flynnfan