By Steve Gordon
What a way to start out the 2016 golf season with a round at the historic Atlantic City Country Club. It's more than a just a golf course, it is a superb old style golf course dating back to 1897. It has hosted seven national championship events and has had it's share of celebrities with old photos dotting the walls of the club. It even maintains a locker used by Al Capone when he visited the club.
Here is where I like to insert some photos but bear with me on these that were taken with my phone. At this time of year on a cloudy winter day there wasn't a lot to take pictures of.
That said here are two photos of the 15th hole, a par 3 of 172 yards from the white tees. There was a substantial wind from left to right and slightly into us this day. As you can see short isn't an option, but neither is right or long or left and long. I guess what I am saying is you need to hit the green or not be too far from it.
There was no one behind us immediately so we both took two shots at it. I over clubbed not wanting to come up short and one held on just over the green. However the other ball I hit just a few yards left of that took a bounce into the bog. Bob was luckier. He had one over near where I was and one shorter that found the green.
The finishing holes 14 thru 17 hug the bay with a view of Atlantic City in the background. It's more visible and prominent to the naked eye than my cell phone or a camera will show. The 384 yard dogleg right 18th hole turns back toward the clubhouse which is undergoing major renovations and upgrades. The main dining room in the clubhouse looks down the 18th and the adjacent 10th hole with a magnificent view.
There have been renovations to the original course coming in 1915 by Willie Park, Jr and then in 1925 by Howard Toomey and William Flynn before the latest major work done in 1999 by Tom Doak. But golf courses are always a work in progress to remain current and maintain original design features that need addressed from time to time. The current work being done is focused on upgrading the bunkers.
The bottom line is that we had a wonderful day on the golf course and didn't play all the badly either. The question is, when you start the season at a place like this where do you go from there?
What a way to start out the 2016 golf season with a round at the historic Atlantic City Country Club. It's more than a just a golf course, it is a superb old style golf course dating back to 1897. It has hosted seven national championship events and has had it's share of celebrities with old photos dotting the walls of the club. It even maintains a locker used by Al Capone when he visited the club.
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| Locker room under off season renovations. |
So as things worked out a friend of over 40 years and I managed to get a tee time on the first day the club opened the course for play. It was an overcast but dry, slightly windy but not too cold February Saturday morning. It had been probably over 20 years since I played there last.
First of all I have to tell you that there are public courses who wish they were in this good of conditioning at the height of their seasons. Here we were in February with the superintendent apologizing to players for the conditioning of the layout and saying the greens were putting like a 6. That would be in reference to a reading on the stimpmeter, a device used to measure the speed of a ball when putting.
For the novice or non golfer, that means you have to hit the ball harder to get it to roll on the greens as opposed to those fast smooth surfaces you see weekly on golf telecasts. Tournament courses are set up with speeds of 12 (slightly less than putting on linoleum).
We were taking it all in and talking in the comfy confines of the pro shop when a voice came in from outside that we had the tee. OK, let our golf season begin.
On the first tee we took some practice swings and that was the warm up outside of some stretching. Neither of us had hit a golf ball or swung a club for roughly two months. Bob hit first and put one down the middle. I came out of mine and pushed it right. It was playable but I took a first tee first round of the year mulligan and put the second one in the fairway. I would have been a 5 either way on the 428 yard opening par 4 into the wind.
A look at the scorecard won't scare you with a total yardage of 6577 from the tips, 6175 from the white tees and the forward tees set at 5369 and 5228 yards. However if you are a student of the game you know the old courses had design features on their side and total yardage was no indication of how a course plays. There is a reason those short by today's standard long tees have a 72.3/133 rating.
I don't want to do a boring hole by hole detail, but I need to point out that ACCC is very typical of old style courses with short and long holes. When you hit two short par fours as the second and third par 4's are followed by a 131 yard par three you shouldn't get lulled into a false sense of security. There are no pushover holes here. These are just your warm up holes as you get into the meat of this classic design.
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| View from the tee of the 15th peninsula green. |
That said here are two photos of the 15th hole, a par 3 of 172 yards from the white tees. There was a substantial wind from left to right and slightly into us this day. As you can see short isn't an option, but neither is right or long or left and long. I guess what I am saying is you need to hit the green or not be too far from it.
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| View of the 15th green coming off the 14th green. |
There was no one behind us immediately so we both took two shots at it. I over clubbed not wanting to come up short and one held on just over the green. However the other ball I hit just a few yards left of that took a bounce into the bog. Bob was luckier. He had one over near where I was and one shorter that found the green.
The finishing holes 14 thru 17 hug the bay with a view of Atlantic City in the background. It's more visible and prominent to the naked eye than my cell phone or a camera will show. The 384 yard dogleg right 18th hole turns back toward the clubhouse which is undergoing major renovations and upgrades. The main dining room in the clubhouse looks down the 18th and the adjacent 10th hole with a magnificent view.
There have been renovations to the original course coming in 1915 by Willie Park, Jr and then in 1925 by Howard Toomey and William Flynn before the latest major work done in 1999 by Tom Doak. But golf courses are always a work in progress to remain current and maintain original design features that need addressed from time to time. The current work being done is focused on upgrading the bunkers.
The bottom line is that we had a wonderful day on the golf course and didn't play all the badly either. The question is, when you start the season at a place like this where do you go from there?
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