Baltimore CC Five Farms - Photo Tour

[david h. carroll]

Scott's pictures predate the full bunker, tee and irrigation work we completed almost 2 years ago under the direction of Keith Foster.  Yes, a few trees were lost in the process

I think what continuially amazes me about Five Farms is the scale of the golf course...it is just plain big, and full bodied in both width and the rolling terrain.  I have yet to see photos that can fully convey that.

[Matt MacIver]

One more thought about Five Farms, as a par 70, it only has 2 par 5s.  But both are absolutely terrific.  Seems to me par 5s are often the weakest link in many great course.  Not so at Five Farms.

Seems to me you can say par5s are one of Tilly's strengths, when looking at his portfolio of courses. 

[Sean_A]

I was just going through pictures (from Art Fuller's site) of areas I rarely look at and discovered this wonderful thread.  Baltimore looks to be a superb course.  I can't tell much about the greens.  How do many of them slope?

Could someone tell me how the club works?  There seem to be two sites and a huge number of members.

Ciao

Sean

[Matt Elliott]

Thanks for posting pictures of BCC! When I was living in Baltimore I played Five Farms quite often. The East remains one of my favorite golf courses. I always remember it as one of the most fun golf courses I've had a change to regularly play. I haven't played over there in 5 years or so, but I still talk about how great it is. If you  anyone gets a chance to play take it.

On a side note, do you still want to hit your tee shot on 6 over that building? I couldn't believe it the first time I played over there and I was told to hit it over the building and ended up with a mid iron into the green.

[Jim Franklin]

I was just going through pictures (from Art Fuller's site) of areas I rarely look at and discovered this wonderful thread.  Baltimore looks to be a superb course.  I can't tell much about the greens.  How do many of them slope?

Could someone tell me how the club works?  There seem to be two sites and a huge number of members.

Ciao

Sean

The greens typically slope back to front fairly severely. You rarely have an aggressive putt at birdie. Pin high on a lot of the greens is death as you need to play a ton of break and the balls tend to roll out under the hole especially in the fall. 6, 8, 13, 16 are the greens you can be a little more aggressive.

As for membership, we have a downtown club with squash, paddle, weights etc... and that is where most weddings and parties take place. The dining there is open in the winter.

Five Farms has golf, swimming, and tennis and the dining is open mid-spring to late fall. There are 2200 members or so, but 750 golf members. It is a wonderful course and something you do not get bored with for sure. If in the area, please email me. I have hosted a wide variety of GCA guys and always enjoy sharing the club.

[Ed Oden]

I have re-sized the photos in my original posts to fit the new gca template.  Hopefully that will make viewing a bit easier.  BCC is a fantastic place.  I've been fortunate to see a number of other notable Tillinghast designs since my visit to BCC.  In my opinion, Five Farms stacks up well against his best work.

[Mark McKeever]

Thanks for posting the great pictures.  The course looks like a wonderful Tilly design!!

Mark

[JLahrman]

My ultimate compliment - this course looks like it would be fun to play.

[Terry Lavin]

This is my number one favorite photo thread.  What a place!

[Matthew Sander]

Wow! Five Farms looks fantastic. The roll of the land is beautiful and looks to be used perfectly. I especially like Ed's photo of 15 with 11 visible in the background. Although these shots are before the trees are full, it looks like the tree removal opened up views of the entire course. Thanks to Sean for bumping this thread...

[Sean_A]

I was just going through pictures (from Art Fuller's site) of areas I rarely look at and discovered this wonderful thread.  Baltimore looks to be a superb course.  I can't tell much about the greens.  How do many of them slope?

Could someone tell me how the club works?  There seem to be two sites and a huge number of members.

Ciao

Sean

The greens typically slope back to front fairly severely. You rarely have an aggressive putt at birdie. Pin high on a lot of the greens is death as you need to play a ton of break and the balls tend to roll out under the hole especially in the fall. 6, 8, 13, 16 are the greens you can be a little more aggressive.

As for membership, we have a downtown club with squash, paddle, weights etc... and that is where most weddings and parties take place. The dining there is open in the winter.

Five Farms has golf, swimming, and tennis and the dining is open mid-spring to late fall. There are 2200 members or so, but 750 golf members. It is a wonderful course and something you do not get bored with for sure. If in the area, please email me. I have hosted a wide variety of GCA guys and always enjoy sharing the club.

Jim

So two courses are on one site (Five Farmas?) rather than split like at Merion? 

Thanks.  The greens sound very much like many Ross courses.  Two questions.  Are there many contours in the greens or is slope the main feature?  Are the approaches long enough to get that flattened effect and hence roll to back of the greens leaving many nasty downhillers? 

Ciao

[Jim Franklin]

Yes there are two courses on Five Farms. Tillie designed two, but the members only built the East. The West was a complete redo in '89 by Cupp/Kite. There has been discussion about building the 12-14 holes Tillie designed, but without the sale of some land downtown, that won't happen.

There are plenty of long, uphill approaches so the ball can certainly scoot past and give you a ticklish downhill putt. Most of the contour is back to front, but there are a few greens with some internal contours. Doak, in the Confidential Guide, said our greens were not severe enough. (Not sure the exact quote but it was along those lines). I respectfully disagree. You do not have a lot of aggressive birdie putts in a round. You putt defensively most of your round.

[Jerry Kluger]

Jim:  The green speeds are also a factor and I was wondering if they have increased since the publication of the CG - those speeds can certainly intimidate most players.  Is it true that they slowed the green speeds down for the seniors? 

[Jim Franklin]

Jerry -

They did slow the greens down. In fact, a Senior Tour official went to each green in the morning and instructed the crew to cut each green at a specific height. While I fully agree these greens were not designed to play that fast, get over it and play them the way we do. At the club championship qualifier two weeks ago, the 15th was brutal, but the old guys would never play it like that. The group in front of me had over 12 putts for the 3 of them. I was glad to see them putt so I knew where not to be too .

[Sean_A]

Yes there are two courses on Five Farms. Tillie designed two, but the members only built the East. The West was a complete redo in '89 by Cupp/Kite. There has been discussion about building the 12-14 holes Tillie designed, but without the sale of some land downtown, that won't happen.

There are plenty of long, uphill approaches so the ball can certainly scoot past and give you a ticklish downhill putt. Most of the contour is back to front, but there are a few greens with some internal contours. Doak, in the Confidential Guide, said our greens were not severe enough. (Not sure the exact quote but it was along those lines). I respectfully disagree. You do not have a lot of aggressive birdie putts in a round. You putt defensively most of your round.

Jim

Cheers.

Ciao

[Ian Andrew]

I'm stunned how similar it looks to Scarboro - both courses were done at the exact same time.

Ian

[Rory Connaughton]

Mr. Taylor was kind enough to host me for my first game at BCC yesterday.  The course looks terrific in Ed's photos but you should see the place when the leaves are changing.  It is hard to convey just how good the course looked in that low October light with trees blazing orange etc. 

I believe Dan may have compared BCC to Huntingdon Valley. I would say that the comparison really begins and ends with the use of the small valley through the back 9 and the fact that both courses are very large in scale though I think BCC feels even bigger than HVCC.  I think BCC probably has variety in its par fours.  What really leaps out for me is the way side slopes are used to such great effect.  I really felt like there was a major distance advantage if you could place your drive properly and catch those slopes.  The course was very firm and running which enhanced that feature.  The bunkering, particularly at the greens, is very intense and in some cases they are flat out cavernous.

Major kudos also with respect to the tree work that was done. Some fantastic vistas from high points on the course.  BCC has a great vibe and it is deserving of its reputation.

[Jim Eder]

Thank you very much for the pictures.  I have always wanted to see the course and it certainly looks fantastic.  Thank you!!

[Jim Sherma]

I had the pleasure of playing Baltimore CC's East Course on Sunday and was blown away. The scale of the green complexes was wonderful as was the way the routing took you across the property. The greens were certainly some of the most difficult I ever putted. Having a great caddy helped immensely. These were the fastest greens I've played all year and given the amount of slope on them they were a handfull.

The club was relaxed and gracious and this really was a special day out.

Some thoughts on individual holes that stick out in my mind:

1 - Intimidating first hole with a green that gets you ready for what your going to see. We had a front left pin and there was very little area that was usable for your approach -- I had pin high 15 feet right and was very defensive to keep it on the green once it snapped by the hole.

2 - The scale of the left greenside bunkers is a preview of what you get throughout the round - you do get a sneak preview with a good view of the fourth as you drive into the property.

4 - Wow - very cool hole and the green is more severe than it looks from the tee.

6 - Neat tee shot with the barn and the old-school green with the squared off corners really made the hole for me.

7 - Great natural hole using the roll of the land in the driving zone and a wonderful green pad that was very intimidating visually.

9 - Someone is good enough to play this hole, I was not. Flew a 5-iron 10 feet onto the green and it released through to the rough behind the green - downhill lie in deep rough to a fast green sloping away from me was more than I had in my arsenal.

12 - This hole must get scarier the more times you play it. The blind water hazard at the turn in the fairway is very penal and while I hit a great drive just left of the yellow hazard stake i would have been much more wary if I knew what was up there.

14 - Great par-5. The alpinization in the great hazard and the scale of the built-up green is awesome.

The fact that I only listed two holes on the back nine does not imply that I think less of it. There was not one indifferent hole on the entire course. Every hole had something interesting happening on it and the more I think about the round the higher my opinion of the course is. In my opinion the 10th was probably the least distinctive hole on the course in that it did not strike me as necessarily unique to the site. Saying that, it was very architecturally solid with the advantage of a flat lie as payback for challenging the creek on the left.

All in all a great day and a great course. It is hard to believe that there are 90+ courses better than this in the US.

[Rick Wolffe]

Ed Oden's pics caught my attention.

It appears to me that the greens at Baltimore Country Club's Five Farm Course have shrunken drastically in size from their original dimensions.  In just about every green pictured there is a good three to five yards of lost green surface around each green's perimeter.

Is this the case?  Have these greens really shrunk that much?

If the green dimensions were restored to their original size and shape would that provide more pin positions and excitement for member and tournament play?

The green restoration at Paramount has proven to me that green expansions increases pin positions, and enhances the beauty of the green architecture and its surrounds.

[Jim Franklin]

We are redoing the greens next year and getting some of the original shapes back while easing some of the tilt in a few of the greens to provide more pin placements. They will also be being rebuilt to USGA specs so hopefully they will tolerate the mid-atlantic heat better.

All in all it is a wonderful place to play and really amazed there are 90 better courses in US. If you are around Baltimore and want to play, call me.

[Rick Wolffe]

Thank you Jim Franklin for the update on the club's green project.  

It is shame that Five Farms has fallen out of the various magazine golf rankings in recent years.  This Tillinghast masterpiece has always been a top 50 US course in my mind and for that matter a top 100 in the world!

Over past number of years I have noticed that the really great courses, the ones that are also the most highly ranked ones, have either maintained their original green dimensions or have restored their dimensions to the green's original fill pad and its approach.  I first noticed this at Merion some 15 years ago...Oakmont is another great that has beautiful large greens that are maintained to the "fill pad" of the green and blend naturally into the approach.  

[Philip Caccamise]

Definitely on my list of must-play Tillinghasts. What a wonderful golf course, looks like a great place to be a member!