One of the neat things about golf is the variety of the playing fields and facilities.
Recently, I was driving along Rt 9, taking in historcal, if not fabled surroundings.
Elegant fieldstone churches, beautifully decorated graveyards, magnificent stone walls and the like, when suddenly, I came across a magnificent stone and iron gate.
It was open, so, I turned into the gates, and as soon as I did, before me there appeared, fields, landscaping, greens, bunkers and a majestic clubhouse high up on a hill. There were tennis courts, a pool, stables, skeet ranges and ..... a golf course.
When I parked my car and walked to the clubhouse there was a panoramic view of the facilities, the golf course and the Palisades.
I had to tour this elegant setting, these fabulous buildings and, I had to play this golf course
In the locker room there was a schematic of the golf course dated in 1931. The schematic had been prepared by an architectural firm located in Fair Lawn, New Jersey.
The architects name escapes me, but, his initials were CSW.
I managed to become paired with a member and two of his guests.
When I mentioned that I had never heard of the architect whose schematic was hanging in the clubhouse, the member indicated that he never heard of him either. But, I was told that some very famous architects, living and dead, had been involved with the design and redesign and modification of the golf course over many years.
The golf course sits on unique terrain.
The golf course starts off and finishes with fairly wide fairways. In the mid section of the golf course, those fairways narrow. The golf course is both open and cut through the woods.
I marveled at the diversity in the design.
No two holes were alike, even though three holes on the back nine had some similarities, the uniqueness of the greens, fairways, elevation changes, etc, etc., made them different.
There was a punchbowl green, not unlike the 1st on the 4th nine at Montclair. There was a short, with an intimidating, almost skyline look. Unfortunately, a horseshoe mound had been removed from the putting surface. There was a reverse Redan, probably better than # 11 at LACC North or The Creek.
There was a double fairway. There were uphill holes, downhill holes, short holes, long holes, dogleg holes. There was even a new green being constructed that was very unique looking, and, it was a plateau green with a raised rear tier.
The par 3's were great. All quite unique.
There were only two par 5's, but, they too were unique.
The par 4's had terrific diversity, inclusive of very different putting surfaces. Some had an inordinate number of contours, others were canted or sloped. The fairways had very little cut and fill work and were quite natural.
Some reminded me of Yale, with large humps in the middle.
Others had ridges or mounding, still others had landing plateaus.
As I was playing one of the par 3 holes, I noticed some work being done by a crew that didn't appear to be the club's crew.
Fortunately, I didn't hit any of the crew or the fellow who appeared to be supervising the work.
When I walked up to the green I spoted George Bahto.
He was supervising the work.
I immediately engaged him with a myriad of questions.
George not only responded, but followed us around, providing a guided tour of the work completed, the work underway and the work contemplated.
The member pointed out on hole after hole where the trees had been removed. We also discussed how golf courses devolve over time, how one mistake seems to compound itself with more mistakes and how difficult it was to overcome the think that created many of these mistakes.
Not having seen the golf course previously, but, seeing the many seeded areas, it was clear that the tree removal program had been highly successful, although, like most clubs, more remains to be done.
On a number of holes, new back tees were being added.
Probably to offset the phantom increase in distance brought about by modern technology
The golf course was very sporty, a very enjoyable member's golf course, with a tremendous amount of history.
The club seems keenly aware of that and is attempting to recapture much of the early design work while at the same time offsetting the distance issue.
Afterward, the member discussed some of the difficulty, some of the resistance to changes that most would think would be automatic. I stated that often, club politics dictate the evolving architecture, sometimes for the better, as was the case here, and sometimes for the worse.