Mike
I played there once about 2 years ago. A good value course that doesn't beat you up. As the website states,"A Feel Good Course."
For some pics:
www.whiteoaksgolf.comHere's some info on the course's development:
The latest course to take seed is Arret and Emory Dobson's par 71, 6,500-yard White Oaks Country Club
Designed by Steve Filippone with additions and features by golf course builders/designers Ted Ellsworth and Mike Gaffney, this parkland-style 155-acre layout, cut out of 238 acres of pine and oak trees, is scheduled to be open for public play next May. Six-to-nine holes are slated to be open for members in the late fall of this year.
The site, previously owned by the late Sam Fabian, was already approved for a golf course before the Dobson brothers purchased it.
``About a year and a-half ago a local Relator had this property listed,'' Arret Dobson said. ``We knew nothing about it until I had conversation with someone in the township. I'm a local builder. My brother and I have a development company.
``Just in conversation with the planning board secretary, I learned that this site had approvals for an 18-hole golf course and I asked to see the plans. She let me see the plans. We were a little interested in it.
``The current owner had passed away and left it to his estate,'' Dobson added. ``I guess he was about five-to-seven years getting approvals from the state. We are in the Pinelands. We contacted the local Realtor to find out what the asking price was. We haggled for probably six or nine months before striking a deal with the estate. Last 4th of July weekend is when we started clearing.'' Five months after the clearing began, Gaffney and Ellsworth, owners/operators of the Southern Sands Golf Design and Development Company, were called upon to apply the finishing touches.
``I had know Ted (land developer) for a couple of years,'' Dobson said. ``We had been looking around for golf courses before. And just for what I seen what Ted and Mike did at Cape May National, we knew they we the guys to bring over here.''
Gaffney came over from the Sand Barrens Golf Club, where he was general and project manager. He oversaw construction of first 18 holes and did some of shaping. On the third nine, ``I did a lot of the shaping and fine grading prior to seeding,'' Gaffney said. ``I learned a lot.''
According to Gaffney, pine and oak trees will line all the fairways. The fairways will be bent grass, 40-to-50 yards wide. The greens, also bent grass, are on the large size. The smallest is 5,500 square feet with the largest being 13,000 square feet. The average size is about 8,000.
``I was brought in after the first of this year to take a look at it and realized that there was a lot more to be done here,'' Gaffney said. ``They decided to go ahead and spend the money. Basically, everything you see feature-wise I've done. It's all my design. The routing except for a couple of points where we changed for safety's sake was done by someone else.''
One feature includes an upper and lower green at the par-4, 350-yard (white tee) ninth hole. A body of water crosses the shorter lower green, with the same water coming into play to the right of the longer upper green.
The par-4, 322-yard (white tee) 15th hole plays to an almost island green with a waste bunker wrapping around the green from the upper right to the upper left.
The 17th, 220-yard par-3 plays to a 12,000 square foot, 70-foot long green, with a fairway waste bunker to the left. A shot hit to the right can roll onto the green. However, it's still a putting challenge to make par. The oversized green offers a lot of movement.
The three par-5's … holes 3, 7, and 10 … play to 455, 562, and 552-yards, all from the white tees.
``My job,'' Gaffney said, ``was to shape and do all the feature work on the golf course, which basically became redesign of all the thought process. I built in all the features, looked real hard at the drainage. I try to make the golf course very playable, enjoyable and challenging.''
At the right price.
``Right now it looks like $45 during the week and $65 on weekends,'' said general manager Nick Pileggi. ``We looked at some of the other area courses and we didn't necessarily want to be the highest, and certainly didn't want to be the lowest because of the quality of the course. We wanted to make sure it was marketable right from the beginning.''
As part of the marketability White Oaks is offering, among its memberships, a weekly individual membership at $1,000 per calendar year. This package will include unlimited greens fees Monday through Friday (carts not included), a 14-day advance tee-time reservation, member-only golf clinics, member-only golf tournaments, bag storage, access to the locker room, handicap privileges and a 10 percent discount on all golf shop merchandise.
And, unlike most new courses, White Oaks will have its clubhouse in place when the course opens. The spacious patio-styled brick building will be complete with bar, grille room, restaurant, locker rooms, banquet facility and a complete pro shop run by director of golf Mike Nicolossi.
``The owners, since they were builders, wanted the clubhouse done the same time as the course,'' Pileggi added. ``It will be done ahead of schedule. As an added attraction, the clubhouse will be a salute to Masters Champion and two-time U.S. Open winner Bill Casper. The clubhouse will feature memorabilia.