jamesdeluxe
Well-known member
- Joined
- Jul 17, 2020
With the end of our gorgeous late-October weather cycle in sight, I wanted to get in one more golf day with peak foliage in the Poconos and headed west on I-80 to a club less than two miles from the Delaware Water Gap that I've had my eye on for a while. Completed in 1911, Shawnee Golf Resort has the distinction of being the first-ever design of superstar golf architect A.W. Tillinghast. Over the years, I've played a handful of the more than 250 courses he'd created, collaborated on, or modified in the United States: Bethpage (Black, Red, and Blue) and Drumlins in New York State along with Forest Hill Field Club, Glen Ridge, East Orange, and Francis Byrne within a 20-minute drive of my house in New Jersey. Legendary Baltusrol is only three miles away but unless I win the lottery, I doubt I'll be playing there anytime soon.
The first thing I noticed after pulling into Shawnee is how it felt like a trip in the wayback machine to 50, 75, or 100 years ago when dozens of these types of vacation properties existed in the Catskills and Poconos. As we know, the age of widespread air-travel starting in the 1960s caused the massive dieout of these resorts as residents of downstate New York, eastern Pennsylvania, and northern New Jersey started opting for more exotic destinations across the country and around the world. Shawnee is one of the few remaining OG everything-on-the-premise resorts with 85 guest rooms, four restaurants and taverns, an indoor swimming pool, a cafe/bakery, and an onsite micro-brewery/taproom (photos here).
Shawnee was founded by wealthy industrialist Charles C. Worthington who hired his friend Tillinghast to design a golf course on an island in the Delaware River. It was an appropriate choice as Tillinghast already loved the area and had purchased a house on the river in 1902.
At the 1913 Shawnee Open tournament, Worthington proposed in a letter to the participants that professional golfers should organize themselves into a professional association. This recommendation later bloomed into the PGA so it's not a stretch to say that the organization got its start at Shawnee. The course hosted the 1938 PGA Open, in which Paul Runyan defeated Shawnee's longtime touring pro Sam Snead, and the 1967 NCAA Championship, which was won by a young Hale Irwin.
To underscore the fact that you're at Shawnee to play golf, directly in front of the hotel's main entrance is a putting green rather than a parking lot:
Burning bush in full color near a side entrance:
Rocking chairs on the porch overlooking the putting green. The hotel was busy due to leaf peepers there to check out the foliage.
The resort's purchase by famous bandleader Fred Waring in 1943 turned Shawnee into a celebrity hangout for several decades as evidenced by dozens of black-and-white portraits hanging throughout the hotel featuring well-known guests including actors, entertainers, world leaders, and athletes. Under Waring's ownership another nine holes were added to Tillinghast's original 18 in 1963 (more about that at the end of the report).
Here's “The Great One” Jackie Gleason standing at the first tee with his driver. There's a much-told story about how Gleason played his first game of golf at Shawnee in 1959 and carded a mindblowing 143; however, 15 months later following practice and lessons, he allegedly shot a 75 there. If true, that's quite an improvement!
Sam Snead, age 24, playing at Shawnee in 1936.
Dwight Eisenhower
Here's a drone pic from Shawnee's website that shows how 24 of the 27 holes are located on an island in the middle of the Delaware River accessed via a bridge in the lower right corner. The narrow section of the river to the right of the island is called the Binnekill (it means "a side channel along a river" in Dutch), which comes into play intriguingly on a few holes. As you can see, there are no manmade constructions like condos, houses, or traffic on nearby roads to distract you from the task at hand.
This is the brand new steel bridge that recently replaced Shawnee's wooden bridge:
A pic from last year of the previous bridge. Parts of it were laying on the grass waiting to be carted away. It was dismantled beam-by-beam at the end of every season and reconstructed at the beginning of the following season.
Hole 1 green:
By Hole 2, the sun had finally broken through to provide a nice view of the river from the rough. Although 2/3 of the leaves had already fallen from the trees, the remaining foliage was beautiful.
Hole 2 green:
Hole 4 with one of the course's many water hazards. This one comes into play on the following hole:
The island holes are generally flat, but have a decent amount of fairway cross-bunkering:
The best holes were the ones closest to the hotel (on the "mainland") that take advantage of the Binnekill as a hazard and have elevation changes. On this par 3, I was warned that the green slanted toward the tee, making it difficult to keep balls from rolling off.
Here's that same hole 110 years earlier. The flower pots just to the left of the tee are a nice touch.
The warning was accurate as my tee shot landed pin-high but rolled all the way to the bottom of the green. I three-putted for a disappointing bogey.
Reverse shot of the green taken from the bridge with the hotel in view and the Binnekill on the right:
This was a great uphill par four with a perched green protected by mounds and bunkers:
Approach shot:
Up next was an uphill par-3 with a "punchbowl" green:
At the turn, I bought one of the beers that's brewed on the premises, ShawneeCraft Apiarius. As the name implies, it has a light note of honey.
The tenth tee framed by the Kittatinny Ridge:
A fantastic 205-yard uphill par 3 with the river just below the tees and the green protected by bunkers. The lower trap definitely qualifies as "jail."
A putt with a view:
Heading back toward the bridge:
My final judgement on the course (which is incomplete as I only played 18 of the 27 holes) was while there were a number of Tillinghast standout holes I'd love to play again, the flat ones on the island weren't really noteworthy. Regardless, between the foliage, the gorgeous landscape, the pleasant couple playing in our threesome, and all of the golf history, it was a memorable day. Moreover, it was my 30th round of this season. I'd never reached that number of golf rounds or ski days (I'd hit 29 several times).
Still, I knew that there was something else going on with this course beyond the gorgeous visuals, so a bit of internet sleuthing turned up an interesting story starting with this 1914 map:
.. and this is the map of the present-day layout with 27 holes
The aforementioned 1963 addition of nine more holes was considered sacrilege to Tillinghast's masterful original design and resulted in many key features being destroyed or greatly reduced. Allegedly, only four or five of the 27 holes are completely preserved from the original course. That may account for my lukewarm impression of the majority of island holes.
A couple examples of lost features are below: Tillinghast's use of native grasses in fairway bunkers. Imagine trying to hit a shot out of a trap like that with those bushes in front of or alongside you!
This is a teebox from a century ago:
... and this pic on the Golf Club Atlas forum shows that it's been abandoned:
That's why the 2009 announcement from well-regarded golf architect Tom Doak (who had designed a lighted six-hole pitch-and-putt course at Shawnee in recent years) about his gentleman's agreement to convert the 27-hole layout back into Tillinghast's original 18-hole design was greeted with so much enthusiasm amongst golf geeks. Unfortunately, due to ongoing expenses from costly flood cleanups, Doak reported in 2016 that he not heard from the Shawnee owners in three or four years and suspected that the project was dead in the water. He opined:
I always thought that the only time it would make sense to restore the course would be after a big flood year, when they'd have to close the course anyway. [You sure as hell wouldn't want to close it and restore everything the year BEFORE a big flood.] We will continue to hope for no floods for several more years so that the client will have the funds available to pursue a restoration if and when he has to.
Since the new $2.5 million permanent bridge has now been installed, one can hope that at some point in the future there'll be the financial wherewithal to have Doak return the course to its onetime glory. That said; most agree that the course's regular flooding issues (documented in this lengthy 2007 Golf Digest article) are the biggest hurdle to an eventual restoration.
The first thing I noticed after pulling into Shawnee is how it felt like a trip in the wayback machine to 50, 75, or 100 years ago when dozens of these types of vacation properties existed in the Catskills and Poconos. As we know, the age of widespread air-travel starting in the 1960s caused the massive dieout of these resorts as residents of downstate New York, eastern Pennsylvania, and northern New Jersey started opting for more exotic destinations across the country and around the world. Shawnee is one of the few remaining OG everything-on-the-premise resorts with 85 guest rooms, four restaurants and taverns, an indoor swimming pool, a cafe/bakery, and an onsite micro-brewery/taproom (photos here).
Shawnee was founded by wealthy industrialist Charles C. Worthington who hired his friend Tillinghast to design a golf course on an island in the Delaware River. It was an appropriate choice as Tillinghast already loved the area and had purchased a house on the river in 1902.
At the 1913 Shawnee Open tournament, Worthington proposed in a letter to the participants that professional golfers should organize themselves into a professional association. This recommendation later bloomed into the PGA so it's not a stretch to say that the organization got its start at Shawnee. The course hosted the 1938 PGA Open, in which Paul Runyan defeated Shawnee's longtime touring pro Sam Snead, and the 1967 NCAA Championship, which was won by a young Hale Irwin.
To underscore the fact that you're at Shawnee to play golf, directly in front of the hotel's main entrance is a putting green rather than a parking lot:
Burning bush in full color near a side entrance:
Rocking chairs on the porch overlooking the putting green. The hotel was busy due to leaf peepers there to check out the foliage.
The resort's purchase by famous bandleader Fred Waring in 1943 turned Shawnee into a celebrity hangout for several decades as evidenced by dozens of black-and-white portraits hanging throughout the hotel featuring well-known guests including actors, entertainers, world leaders, and athletes. Under Waring's ownership another nine holes were added to Tillinghast's original 18 in 1963 (more about that at the end of the report).
Here's “The Great One” Jackie Gleason standing at the first tee with his driver. There's a much-told story about how Gleason played his first game of golf at Shawnee in 1959 and carded a mindblowing 143; however, 15 months later following practice and lessons, he allegedly shot a 75 there. If true, that's quite an improvement!
Sam Snead, age 24, playing at Shawnee in 1936.
Dwight Eisenhower
Here's a drone pic from Shawnee's website that shows how 24 of the 27 holes are located on an island in the middle of the Delaware River accessed via a bridge in the lower right corner. The narrow section of the river to the right of the island is called the Binnekill (it means "a side channel along a river" in Dutch), which comes into play intriguingly on a few holes. As you can see, there are no manmade constructions like condos, houses, or traffic on nearby roads to distract you from the task at hand.
This is the brand new steel bridge that recently replaced Shawnee's wooden bridge:
A pic from last year of the previous bridge. Parts of it were laying on the grass waiting to be carted away. It was dismantled beam-by-beam at the end of every season and reconstructed at the beginning of the following season.
Hole 1 green:
By Hole 2, the sun had finally broken through to provide a nice view of the river from the rough. Although 2/3 of the leaves had already fallen from the trees, the remaining foliage was beautiful.
Hole 2 green:
Hole 4 with one of the course's many water hazards. This one comes into play on the following hole:
The island holes are generally flat, but have a decent amount of fairway cross-bunkering:
The best holes were the ones closest to the hotel (on the "mainland") that take advantage of the Binnekill as a hazard and have elevation changes. On this par 3, I was warned that the green slanted toward the tee, making it difficult to keep balls from rolling off.
Here's that same hole 110 years earlier. The flower pots just to the left of the tee are a nice touch.
The warning was accurate as my tee shot landed pin-high but rolled all the way to the bottom of the green. I three-putted for a disappointing bogey.
Reverse shot of the green taken from the bridge with the hotel in view and the Binnekill on the right:
This was a great uphill par four with a perched green protected by mounds and bunkers:
Approach shot:
Up next was an uphill par-3 with a "punchbowl" green:
At the turn, I bought one of the beers that's brewed on the premises, ShawneeCraft Apiarius. As the name implies, it has a light note of honey.
The tenth tee framed by the Kittatinny Ridge:
A fantastic 205-yard uphill par 3 with the river just below the tees and the green protected by bunkers. The lower trap definitely qualifies as "jail."
A putt with a view:
Heading back toward the bridge:
My final judgement on the course (which is incomplete as I only played 18 of the 27 holes) was while there were a number of Tillinghast standout holes I'd love to play again, the flat ones on the island weren't really noteworthy. Regardless, between the foliage, the gorgeous landscape, the pleasant couple playing in our threesome, and all of the golf history, it was a memorable day. Moreover, it was my 30th round of this season. I'd never reached that number of golf rounds or ski days (I'd hit 29 several times).
Still, I knew that there was something else going on with this course beyond the gorgeous visuals, so a bit of internet sleuthing turned up an interesting story starting with this 1914 map:
.. and this is the map of the present-day layout with 27 holes
The aforementioned 1963 addition of nine more holes was considered sacrilege to Tillinghast's masterful original design and resulted in many key features being destroyed or greatly reduced. Allegedly, only four or five of the 27 holes are completely preserved from the original course. That may account for my lukewarm impression of the majority of island holes.
A couple examples of lost features are below: Tillinghast's use of native grasses in fairway bunkers. Imagine trying to hit a shot out of a trap like that with those bushes in front of or alongside you!
This is a teebox from a century ago:
... and this pic on the Golf Club Atlas forum shows that it's been abandoned:
That's why the 2009 announcement from well-regarded golf architect Tom Doak (who had designed a lighted six-hole pitch-and-putt course at Shawnee in recent years) about his gentleman's agreement to convert the 27-hole layout back into Tillinghast's original 18-hole design was greeted with so much enthusiasm amongst golf geeks. Unfortunately, due to ongoing expenses from costly flood cleanups, Doak reported in 2016 that he not heard from the Shawnee owners in three or four years and suspected that the project was dead in the water. He opined:
I always thought that the only time it would make sense to restore the course would be after a big flood year, when they'd have to close the course anyway. [You sure as hell wouldn't want to close it and restore everything the year BEFORE a big flood.] We will continue to hope for no floods for several more years so that the client will have the funds available to pursue a restoration if and when he has to.
Since the new $2.5 million permanent bridge has now been installed, one can hope that at some point in the future there'll be the financial wherewithal to have Doak return the course to its onetime glory. That said; most agree that the course's regular flooding issues (documented in this lengthy 2007 Golf Digest article) are the biggest hurdle to an eventual restoration.
Last edited:
JD 
