For anyone interested a brief history of The Knoll:
Built near the end of the Roaring Twenties by 30 millionaires who were influential and/or officers of
nearby private clubs; Essex County Country Club - Montclair Golf Club - Baltusrol, including Thomas Watson founder of IBM and J. R Monroe (Monroe Business Machine fame). The Knoll was to be a private playground for a select few rich of northern New Jersey.
Charlie Banks built the course and clubhouse architect, the great Clifford Wendehack (Winged Foot Cl/Hs is one of his designs) hired for the clubhouse ( .... ahem, 12 studio apartments on the second floor -
naughty, naughty).
By the time everything was completed they had spent 2 mil - imagine, in the 20's
Also, by the time the course opened the Great Depression had rendered half the millionaire’s pauper.
The “millionaires” held onto the club (barely) for a bit but in 1935 the banks foreclosed on the property in and after a few false attempts by some individual members to save the club, the club was finally sold in 1943 to two brothers, the Aiello’s, who owned a large restaurant supply company (the millionaires were in debt to them for about 30 grand it was rumored).
This was the heyday of the Knoll, 1943 thru 1972.
During this period the (minorities of the day), the Jewish, Italians in particular were not granted memberships at many clubs. The Jewish built a number of courses here in North Jersey and the Knoll, because of the Aiello brothers as owners, was often referred to as the “Italian” club.
Well for a lot of years, it was celebrities galore: the musicians who were playing in NY & NJ, Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey very prominent; the ballplayers from NY teams - DiMaggio very often as well as the Dodger and Giant players (Babe Herman, Pee Wee Reese, Rube Walker); Jackie Gleason, Perry Como, upper echelon Mafia were members but kept a very low profile, and it was a hangout for Gene Sarazen
and Julie Boros, Walter Hagen and Lawson Little were frequent players.
Joe created quite a stir and a traffic jam once when many heard he was bringing his blonde bride along!
Anyhow when the senior owner died the club was sold to a local college in 1972 and it went public (then I could afford to play it - yipppee!! - it’s 5 minutes from my house).
They really wrecked the place - just let it go. They wanted to build a campus but lost out to the township who eventually bought it a year or so later. It continued to suffer for almost 15 years when they stopped pirating the finances (corrupt politico ended in jail). They never put any money into the course.
Finally we are in stable conditions and have gotten the place back to the condition it once was - still lots of fine tuning to do but with municipal ownership it often goes slow.
The main thing is that over the years little was done to alter the course. It was not maintained properly for years. This is why it remains so original. Aside from the period of “Italian” ownership, who added a few back tees, only seven inconsequential bunkers were covered over and the greens are as built with very little top dressing added for many years. I should be able to get the “lost” bunkers back in.