jamesdeluxe
Well-known member
- Joined
- Jul 17, 2020
About the only time that I ever get to play private golf courses is when I'm participating in a charity fundraiser, so for the first of four events that I'll be attending this season, my two brothers joined me to support Ethan & The Bean, a high-end coffee house in Little Falls, NJ where young people with special needs learn job skills. It's a fantastic mission and we're grateful to have a place like this nearby where my son can get training to help him eventually land gainful employment.
I was excited to learn that their yearly golf outing is at Forest Hill Field Club, about 15 minutes away in Bloomfield, which has been in existence since the late 1890s. I knew that the course was designed by A.W. Tillinghast, one of the most prolific golf architects in the world. He's famous in these parts for Winged Foot, Baltusrol, Upper Montclair, and Bethpage Black just to name a few, and my older brother and I grew up playing his excellent course in Syracuse, Drumlins.
Here's a drone shot of a few holes featuring some classic "Tilly" bunkering:
The other thing that I'd already known about Forest Hill Field Club is that it had the distinction of being a preferred course of voracious golfer Babe Ruth. In June 1942, Ruth and Bob Hope played in the Navy Relief Society and Army Emergency Relief Exhibition Match with Craig Wood (who'd won the U.S. Open the previous week) and Vic Ghezzi, who would beat Byron Nelson a month later to win the PGA championship. Wood shot a course-record 63 while Ruth hit a very respectable 77. I can't imagine playing in the 70s with the comparatively archaic clubs and balls that they were using back then. I'd be delighted to break 90 at this course.
In his autobiography Have Tux, Will Travel, Bob Hope wrote: “I was once in a foursome at Forest Hill Country Club in Bloomfield, New Jersey with Babe Ruth. Babe was a left-hander at golf and when he hooked one, it was like a right-hander slicing. It was hard to get used to the switch. It seemed to confuse the spectators and they were in constant peril of being beheaded at all times. Between us, we winged at least eight people out of a gallery of ten thousand.”
Having your course designed by Tillinghast is a big honor so no surprise that they named the main dining room after him, where a couple hundred of us had dinner after our round:
The layout is on a comparatively small parcel of land so there's a fair number of holes with parallel fairways. It's surrounded by modest homes (not McMansions or expensive condos) on three sides and the Garden State Parkway only 400 feet from one green. Due to the thick canopy of trees, you don't see the highway; however, you can certainly hear the traffic going by on two holes. FHFC members back then couldn't have been happy when the Parkway was put there 60 years after the course was opened:
Given that the event is a fundraiser, there were all sorts of opportunities to donate to the cause. While having pre-round drinks and lunch on the outdoor terrace, players could try their luck at putting for a bottle of liquid refreshment: two tries for $20 and you win whichever bottle or can that your ball hits. Tougher than it looks and the expensive tequila, vodka, and whisky bottles in the back were protected by cheap cans of beer in the front:
You can tell from the hazy sky that the weather was in the mid-90s with full humidity (by far the most uncomfortable day of the summer) so there's no way we could've walked an entire round with that much elevation gain. I never take a golf cart but was thankful for one that day.
Already on the first hole, you realise that the major distinguishing feature of this course besides the many sand traps is that you're often either hitting down from an elevated tee or hitting up to a seriously elevated green.
Par 5: an elevated tee shot over water to a dogleg right. Only a really long hitter could attempt to cut the corner over those trees:
Still about 250 yards out but a clear shot to the green:
An uphill approach:
Even this comparatively tame par-4 has bunkers all along the left side:
Immaculately groomed traps:
Hitting down from an elevated tee on this fun par-3. As mentioned above, the Garden State Parkway is lurking just behind those trees:
One of the few flat holes, a slight dogleg right with sand on the left side:
Hole #8, a 216-yard par-3:
The first few holes on the back nine are backdropped by the aforementioned clapboard homes from the early 1900s. My brother joked that it looked like 704 Hauser Street (Archie Bunker's neighborhood in Queens from All In The Family):
A clear upside of playing a private course: look at the gorgeous condition of the fairways -- like hitting from a green:
Difficult to discern from the pic but that's a steep uphill to the green:
No letup at the end: par-3 Hole #18, 200 yards uphill:
I was excited to learn that their yearly golf outing is at Forest Hill Field Club, about 15 minutes away in Bloomfield, which has been in existence since the late 1890s. I knew that the course was designed by A.W. Tillinghast, one of the most prolific golf architects in the world. He's famous in these parts for Winged Foot, Baltusrol, Upper Montclair, and Bethpage Black just to name a few, and my older brother and I grew up playing his excellent course in Syracuse, Drumlins.
Here's a drone shot of a few holes featuring some classic "Tilly" bunkering:
The other thing that I'd already known about Forest Hill Field Club is that it had the distinction of being a preferred course of voracious golfer Babe Ruth. In June 1942, Ruth and Bob Hope played in the Navy Relief Society and Army Emergency Relief Exhibition Match with Craig Wood (who'd won the U.S. Open the previous week) and Vic Ghezzi, who would beat Byron Nelson a month later to win the PGA championship. Wood shot a course-record 63 while Ruth hit a very respectable 77. I can't imagine playing in the 70s with the comparatively archaic clubs and balls that they were using back then. I'd be delighted to break 90 at this course.
In his autobiography Have Tux, Will Travel, Bob Hope wrote: “I was once in a foursome at Forest Hill Country Club in Bloomfield, New Jersey with Babe Ruth. Babe was a left-hander at golf and when he hooked one, it was like a right-hander slicing. It was hard to get used to the switch. It seemed to confuse the spectators and they were in constant peril of being beheaded at all times. Between us, we winged at least eight people out of a gallery of ten thousand.”
Having your course designed by Tillinghast is a big honor so no surprise that they named the main dining room after him, where a couple hundred of us had dinner after our round:
The layout is on a comparatively small parcel of land so there's a fair number of holes with parallel fairways. It's surrounded by modest homes (not McMansions or expensive condos) on three sides and the Garden State Parkway only 400 feet from one green. Due to the thick canopy of trees, you don't see the highway; however, you can certainly hear the traffic going by on two holes. FHFC members back then couldn't have been happy when the Parkway was put there 60 years after the course was opened:
Given that the event is a fundraiser, there were all sorts of opportunities to donate to the cause. While having pre-round drinks and lunch on the outdoor terrace, players could try their luck at putting for a bottle of liquid refreshment: two tries for $20 and you win whichever bottle or can that your ball hits. Tougher than it looks and the expensive tequila, vodka, and whisky bottles in the back were protected by cheap cans of beer in the front:
You can tell from the hazy sky that the weather was in the mid-90s with full humidity (by far the most uncomfortable day of the summer) so there's no way we could've walked an entire round with that much elevation gain. I never take a golf cart but was thankful for one that day.
Already on the first hole, you realise that the major distinguishing feature of this course besides the many sand traps is that you're often either hitting down from an elevated tee or hitting up to a seriously elevated green.
Par 5: an elevated tee shot over water to a dogleg right. Only a really long hitter could attempt to cut the corner over those trees:
Still about 250 yards out but a clear shot to the green:
An uphill approach:
Even this comparatively tame par-4 has bunkers all along the left side:
Immaculately groomed traps:
Hitting down from an elevated tee on this fun par-3. As mentioned above, the Garden State Parkway is lurking just behind those trees:
One of the few flat holes, a slight dogleg right with sand on the left side:
Hole #8, a 216-yard par-3:
The first few holes on the back nine are backdropped by the aforementioned clapboard homes from the early 1900s. My brother joked that it looked like 704 Hauser Street (Archie Bunker's neighborhood in Queens from All In The Family):
A clear upside of playing a private course: look at the gorgeous condition of the fairways -- like hitting from a green:
Difficult to discern from the pic but that's a steep uphill to the green:
No letup at the end: par-3 Hole #18, 200 yards uphill:
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