Plandome by Orrin Smith on long island

[mark chalfant]

I find this to be an interesting course  with a stellar front  nine.

Some cool roller coaster par 5s  as well as  2 short holes that play  over ravines.

Excellent starting hole with brutal uphill appproach.

any thoughts on this    layout,

or background on   Orrin Smith  ?

Thanks.

[Mike_Sweeney]

Mark,

Never playded Plandome, but I have played Rivervale CC which is about 15 miles from the George Washington Bridge in North Jersey, which is also his. I believe that Orrin Smith was a Ross protege.

Rivervale is on 99 acres, but similar to Merion it did not feel that small. I thought it was a really nice course with maybe 2-3 throwaway holes. Small greens, deep bunkers, blind shots, all the stuff that is liked here. It has been owned by a Japanese management company, and had/has a reputation for slow play. I only played it on a weekday, with no problems, but it was carts and cart paths only.  

The course is being sold, and they want to reduce it to 9 holes but need a zoning change for housing which will be difficult. See below.


http://www.rivervalenj.org/GOV_Mayor_Issues.html

[SPDB]

Mark - I like Plandome, and think it is a fun course. It has been ages since I've been there, so I don't remember it too well.

An unfortunate distinction of the club is that they were affected by 9/11 more than any other in the metro area golf club. I believe between 15-20 members perished.

 

[JC Urbina]

Mark
I was involved with some work at Rivervale CC many years while working with Pete Dyes son Perry in the late 80s.  Perry had been hired by Japanese clients to induce some touch up work.  I was asked to make a trip to New York to help with some construction work.  I also made a trip to Plandome and searched out other Smith designs, of which only Plandome had any original work left intact. I had toured the Plandome site and talked briefly with the club manager who informed me that David Postelweight who had also worked for Pete Dye in Florida had taken the job of redoing bunkers, tees and greens.  So what ever you saw was changed at Plandome I believe by David years ago maybe around 1988 0r 1989.
  The reason this post caught my eye was for one very important reason.  When I made this trip to New York on a rainy morning while we couldn't work at Rivervale I asked the pro at Rivervale where The National and Shinnecock were located, he told me Long Island. I figured it that being from the big city of Denver it couldn't be that difficult.
  I set out to find both of these golf courses with out a map.  I some how drove from the Hilton in Rivervale to the town of Shinnecock asking friendly New Yorkers along the way directions, when around noon I happened upon the entrance to Shinnecock and toured the site walking and taking pictures.  I then asked how to find the National( Big Pete) called for me and gave me directions to the National.  Those two golf course completely changed my way of thinking about golf course architecture and driving back to Rivervale that night I kept going over and over in my head why each of those golf courses were so different compared to all of the work I had been doing for Pete and his son Perry.  That experience completely changed my life as far as what direction I would go in golf for the next 15 years.  I retired a few years later from the Dye family and begged Tom Doak for a job, I have never looked back.