I had the pleasure of playing Mountain Ridge last Friday. My host was Jay Blumenfeld, one of the most accomplished amateur golfers in New Jersey. Filling out our foursome were two other excellent players: Andy Abramson and GCA legend Pat Mucci!
I arrived 45 minutes early and Jay, Andy and I warmed up waited patiently for Pat. He arrived a few minutes late, but not too late to go through his normal pre-game warmup...A view of MR's first hole from the tee, which I rate as the best looking opening hole that I have ever played:
A view from the fairway back at the tee as my host could wait no longer for Pat to finish warming up
This was helpful as it gave me time to search for my provisonal that was buried in juicy rough (I found my first ball.)
Our hero finally tees off and catches up to us on the green. His drive ends up in the right rough, but he almost jars the iron shot! Pat announces that the reason for his tardiness is that he had to pick it up a new putter on the way to the course. He proceeds to drain a tough 6 foot downhill, twisting birdie on #1.
Then he follows that with a 60 foot birdie on 2 and par saving putts on 3 and 4. This putter is off to a ridiculous start! He also birdies the par 3 7th and one putts #9 for par...I count 12 putts for 9 holes...
Now if you read Pat's description of his match with Ran, you know that he has a REALLY slow backswing. This comes in handy when you are taking pictures...
Mountain Ridge is an absolute gem of a course, classic Donald Ross bunkering and it is in immaculate shape:
