VK--
This place is a hidden gem. I played it about 10-15 times from 1973 thru 1994, and lived about 0.6-0.7 miles from the 5th tee (as the crow flies). Must confess to having never understood its brilliance back then, but always felt a sense of frustration (for lack of a better term) that none of the supposed "keys to the vault" seemed to work on it...which brought doubt to mind about any and every decision on the tee. I now understand that to be the primary job of an architect.
Funny story about my first time at the club. We arrived around noon on a Friday in August 1973 10 days before Labor Day (long story why I know exact days), and my host asked the locker room attendant if any members were around. The reply was "Mr. XXXXXX, you are the first member here since last Sunday." Different feel than I had playing munis in Queens 10 years before.
Thanks for a wonderful and brilliant dissection of the hole. When did you caddy there?
Working backwards... We'll see after CoVid, but I have been making an occasional loop there right through 2019... but my first "stint" as an "appointment looper" was about 1988, when my Dad rented a garden apartment down the street on Anderson Hill.
Such was the low key, sparse usage that I had even played it before that time I looped on it... no one can believe it theses days, but the place was so empty that Sunday summer afternoons, I used to walk the 3/4 mile down Anderson Hill, through the supers yard and start play on the 12th tee. I did that enough times that I got to know the course before I was engaged to be a fill-in, caddie-by-appointment.
While seeing the preliminaries, I cannot wait to get down there this spring and see the flower of JC Urbina's recent renovation, which I can tell you in preview, seems to be wonderful...