A colleague and I spent quite a bit of time yesterday walking the construction site at the new Trump National course off I78 in New Jersey. We studied all kinds of activities underway including construction and leveling of tees, installation of drainage, floating a green, excavation of bunkers, shaping of fairways, sodding of turf, and so on. We talked to the construction staff (those that could speak English) and were fortunate to spend time with Chris Smith, the Superintendent growing in the golf course. Chris is a great guy and is doing an outstanding job under difficult weather conditions. He worked at Inniscrone with Gil and also did the growin at Hudson National. He said this course would have been done by now were it not for bad weather. He told us about heavy rains and sheet flows of water coming off the hillsides and washing sod (the whole course is being sodded outside of greens, tees and fairways) out into the middle of the fairways. They have had to re-seed the fairways on several occasions. We talked about Tom Fazio who is doing the course (actually Logan Fazio is the on-site design architect). For those of you wondering, Chris said Tom himself is on-site every two weeks walking the property and inspecting the work. Chris said about 300,000 cubic yards of earth have been moved.
As far as the course itself, it sits on 280 acres of beautiful rolling terrain. From what we could see, the routing offers a wonderful tour of the property which consists of treed areas and wide open expanses with fantastic vistas of the countryside. Tom build some bold and enormous bunkers most of which were hand-edged and will consist of steep edges and high flashed sand. The greens are large and undulating and well defended. The one hole on the back side features a cape style green reminiscent of a reverse version of the 17th at Congressional. The hole meanders down the hillside doglegging to the right to a peninsula greensite sitting out in the lake. It will surely be one of the most photographed holes on the golf course. There are touches of fescues in some areas though Chris said its use will be limited.
Chris said little rock was encountered on the site and little blasting was necessary. Quite a few trees were cleared (many were replanted) but from what we could see, the course has an openness and non-claustrophobic feel. Unlike Trump National in NY which was shoe-horned into the property, this is a BIG track. Though each hole offers several sets of teeing grounds, several of the holes feature significant forced carries from the back. I forgot to ask the total yardage but my guess is in the 7500+ range for sure. The one par three featured a 240 yard carry over a stream to a plateau greensite bunkered on both sides. But the course as a whole is expansive in feel and clearly is being designed to hold a significant tournament. Chris said as much and even commented that to determine the fairway widths; they heavily consulted with the USGA on tournament conditions. Most of the landing areas neck down in the 25-30 yard range and if I had one early on complaint (or observation) it would be the fairway width (or lack there of). Some of the holes will be very demanding when the rough is up. Clearly this course is being built for championship standards and members will know that.
I’m sure many of you who are interested in golf course architecture have toured construction sites before. I always enjoy it and learn more every time I have the opportunity. I highly recommend doing so if you ever have the chance.
Mark