So my home club today is my old home club from the 90's. The Shore Club in Cape May Court House, NJ.
Originally built in 1916 , designed by Stiles and Van Cleek , it occupies a fairly small piece of land that has some interest architecturally. Though fairly flat , it borders on the bay across from Stone Harbor / Avalon NJ two tony shore towns in deep southern NJ. There are nice views of the water sprinkled all through the golf course. I would categorize it as an excellent members course , given that the greens are really interesting and make it a pretty good test when the wind blows, which it usually does right given the location.
I really like playing there, although there are a few two many dog left lefts for my liking (doesn't fit my cut ) . It's a little shortish for today's bombers but at least the angles on the doglegs keep them honest. For most of us the blue tees are more than sufficient at 6400 yards given the difficulty of the greens. It's firm thanks to a wonderful superintendent in Doug Larsen, who is one of the best anywhere. We were lucky the Union League didn't grab him when they built the new course right down the road.
Here's the dilemma . When COVID hit many people fled the urban centers , living at their vacation homes away from the maddening crowd. So when golf flourished post pandemic we had a run on the bank so to say. Wildwood CC was saved from bankruptcy by a group of wealthy investors and The Shore Club emerged from the rubble. They instantly made the club solvent and proceeded to make some necessary capital investments in the club. New irrigation system, a few subtle changes to the golf course and a new 18th hole came into being. Tyler Rae did some bunker work and put some long range plans on paper. The gentrification process was well under way when we emerged from the pandemic.