jamesdeluxe
Well-known member
- Joined
- Jul 17, 2020
Similar to spring skiing -- when crowds diminish, the weather is a lot more pleasant, and lift tickets become less expensive -- golf has a similar setup once we hit mid-September. I always take the opportunity to go a bit further afield than my usual golf haunts (municipal courses in Essex County, NJ within 15 minutes of my house), so I drove an hour west on I-80 past the Delaware Water Gap to a course that had been on my to-do list for a while: Country Club of the Poconos (CCP) in East Stroudsburg. A quick online search didn't unearth a lot of information other than it being billed as a "Fazio course" -- alluding (I assumed) to Tom Fazio, one of the most prominent golf-course designers of our time with more than 200 courses to his credit.
Two days before, I booked my round online and nabbed a serious autumn deal on green's fees: $35 including cart. While I generally prefer to walk unless a course is very hilly or long, I'd heard that CCP was both of those so I was happy to leave my pull cart in the car. As I walked into the clubhouse to pay, there were two surprises waiting for me: a) the course was designed by Jim Fazio rather than his more well-known younger brother Tom, and b) greens fees were $25 including cart (!) due to the greens on the back nine being aerated the day before. The only thing better than playing a good course is playing an insanely cheap good course with no one there, so I was a onesome enjoying the golf version of a "private-ski-area" experience -- no one in front of or behind me for most of the next three hours. To get my money's worth, I played two balls on every hole.
The menu for the day: predominantly narrow fairways lined on both sides by dense trees along with a significant amount of vertical rise and drop. For example, the 2nd Tee:
Reverse shot of the tee:
3rd Hole: a 193-yard par 3 over wetland jail. We were about a week away from peak foliage but some of the trees were sporting colorful plumage. Conditions of the tees were sometimes tough and there were some wet spots in the fairways but hey, it's late season and we'd gotten a lot of rain in recent weeks.
Measuring only 5,808 yards from the back tees, the par-70 course itself plays somewhat short; however, there were huge distances from one green to the next tee. Someone in the parking lot told me that the total distance on the carts is something like 12 miles (and it definitely felt like that), so no one actually walks the course.
Riding through the woods to the Hole 4 tee:
You often follow signage through a large subdivision of McMansions -- something I see a lot out west and in Florida but rarely here in the northeast. Many of the cars in the driveways sported Sunshine State plates so yeah, it was that kind of snowbird demographic. Still, I only saw the homes on a couple holes and they were always set back from the fairways.
Hole 7: a Par 5 with a severe dogleg left. You can cut the corner over the reeds on the second shot. Here you can see the aforementioned McMansions shielded from the course by trees. It had started to cloud up a bit.
Throughout the round, the unique (or odd, depending on your point of view) layout -- wetlands to carry, big hills to negotiate, elevated greens, woods that swallow errant balls, and interestingly-placed traps -- kept things challenging.
More elevated tees:
A comparatively flat fairway leading to an elevated green:
One online comment claimed CCP to be "one of the strangest layouts I have played in 50 years of golf! All the holes, fairways and greens are laid out along the slopes rather than up or down. After a while, I figured out that you need to play every shot into the rough on the high side so that it will bounce down and maybe catch the fairway as it runs down the mountain."
Hole 17 tee: numerous beautiful vistas of the Pocono Mountain foothills set against the Delaware Water Gap, eastern Allegheny Plateau, etc.
Reverse shot of the tee:
You finish with, what else, another elevated tee on the par 4 Hole 18:
A great autumn round -- I'll definitely go back.
Two days before, I booked my round online and nabbed a serious autumn deal on green's fees: $35 including cart. While I generally prefer to walk unless a course is very hilly or long, I'd heard that CCP was both of those so I was happy to leave my pull cart in the car. As I walked into the clubhouse to pay, there were two surprises waiting for me: a) the course was designed by Jim Fazio rather than his more well-known younger brother Tom, and b) greens fees were $25 including cart (!) due to the greens on the back nine being aerated the day before. The only thing better than playing a good course is playing an insanely cheap good course with no one there, so I was a onesome enjoying the golf version of a "private-ski-area" experience -- no one in front of or behind me for most of the next three hours. To get my money's worth, I played two balls on every hole.
The menu for the day: predominantly narrow fairways lined on both sides by dense trees along with a significant amount of vertical rise and drop. For example, the 2nd Tee:
Reverse shot of the tee:
3rd Hole: a 193-yard par 3 over wetland jail. We were about a week away from peak foliage but some of the trees were sporting colorful plumage. Conditions of the tees were sometimes tough and there were some wet spots in the fairways but hey, it's late season and we'd gotten a lot of rain in recent weeks.
Measuring only 5,808 yards from the back tees, the par-70 course itself plays somewhat short; however, there were huge distances from one green to the next tee. Someone in the parking lot told me that the total distance on the carts is something like 12 miles (and it definitely felt like that), so no one actually walks the course.
Riding through the woods to the Hole 4 tee:
You often follow signage through a large subdivision of McMansions -- something I see a lot out west and in Florida but rarely here in the northeast. Many of the cars in the driveways sported Sunshine State plates so yeah, it was that kind of snowbird demographic. Still, I only saw the homes on a couple holes and they were always set back from the fairways.
Hole 7: a Par 5 with a severe dogleg left. You can cut the corner over the reeds on the second shot. Here you can see the aforementioned McMansions shielded from the course by trees. It had started to cloud up a bit.
Throughout the round, the unique (or odd, depending on your point of view) layout -- wetlands to carry, big hills to negotiate, elevated greens, woods that swallow errant balls, and interestingly-placed traps -- kept things challenging.
More elevated tees:
A comparatively flat fairway leading to an elevated green:
One online comment claimed CCP to be "one of the strangest layouts I have played in 50 years of golf! All the holes, fairways and greens are laid out along the slopes rather than up or down. After a while, I figured out that you need to play every shot into the rough on the high side so that it will bounce down and maybe catch the fairway as it runs down the mountain."
Hole 17 tee: numerous beautiful vistas of the Pocono Mountain foothills set against the Delaware Water Gap, eastern Allegheny Plateau, etc.
Reverse shot of the tee:
You finish with, what else, another elevated tee on the par 4 Hole 18:
A great autumn round -- I'll definitely go back.
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