Somehow in the scheme of the great courses of the world and especialy those of Donald Ross, America's first name in architecture, Plainfield gets a bit forgotten. It has hosted a USGA Amateur, a USGA Women's Open and innumerable MGA events. Par is not usually broken by the winner at the prestegious (MGA) Metropolitan Golf Association's Open or Amateur Championships when Plainfield Country Club is the host. It is enormous fun for the members and their guests to play on a day to day basis. It is a gorgeous, voluptuous piece of land, it has one of the best and most varied sets of greens that Ross ever built, it has undergone as stunning a renovation as any American Classical Course has ever gone at the hands of Gil Hanse and his crew. It has two par 5's on the second nine that are as good as any two par fives in nine holes in American golf, has a wonderful potentially drivable par 4, has par 3's from wedge to nearly three wood, several long and testing par 4's and it has one of the friendliest memberships around. The property measures approximately 110 acres and is indeed an intimate routing as one nearly falls off one green onto the next tee.
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Recent tree abatement has opened great vistas of this beautiful piece of land and has shown that visibility of other groups in proximity aids in prevention of danger from stray balls rather than necessitating planting of "protective foilage". These perhaps well-intentioned protective conifers are golf turf's greatest enemy.
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Across two and twelve greens to the added tunnel holes
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Nine tee facing rearwards overlooking seventeen fairway to the sixteen green complex far left. Hole eleven is to the right. A wonderful sense of openness and freedom overcomes the player on such inspiring land allowing such long vistas
Original Routing
The original 17th and 18th holes were eliminated for a practice area and the so-called tunnel holes 13-15, perhaps not quite up to the level of the remainder of the course, were added, probably by Walter Johnson. (The land swap was approximately 18 for 13 acres using the Google Planimiter online area calculator.) Other than the thirteenth they are relatively in character with the rest of the course and in the process of that late 1920's re-design the sublime par 5 twelfth hole was created at Plainfield.
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(Looking towards the end of the "Tunnel Holes" - #15 is just past the hut)
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Can one or perhaps two holes relegate Plainfield to some second-class status when the famed Pebble Beach Golf (not) Links has fully 40% of its holes as uninspired as they are and be considered top 5 in America? What does this tell us about the process of opining on and ranking favorite golf courses?
Plainfield Country Club has a very proud membership that truly loves and respects the traditions of golf. They have a tremendous cadre of caddies overseen by Dave Preacher, one of golf's most admired caddiemasters. PCC likely is the hardest-to-find great American golf course. Nestled away far from the main arteries of golf-laden northern New Jersey one is best equipped with GPS to get to Plainfield the first few times. It can be a challenge to the cliched gentleman loathe to stop and ask for directions. Once there a complete examination awaits.
Fine tight turf and serious rough keeps the player on his or her toes however, width has been restored to create strategies and one may still find trouble in the fairway if the wrong side is hit. It is wholly innecessary to mow the fairways single-file width at Plainfield. Notice the width displayed in the photographs of the first fairway just below.
As part of this review, some older pre-restoration photographs are available and will be posted first, even before the review is fully complete. They will be in close proximity to evolutionary photographs as well as most current day to show the process of restoration and the benefits of proper tree management. They are from all seasons from 2000 through 2007. Soon we will be adding the latest 2008 spring photos.
Please enjoy one of my very favorite golf courses. The Head Golf Professional is Scott Paris as fine a gentleman as a head professional can be. He is an outstanding teacher and since I have known him professionally since his very first job when he was a mere whippersnapper, I can vouch that I am in no measure exaggerating on that!
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Hole One Par 4/5 (ladies)
432/421/410/404
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Hole Two Par 4/5
443/437/425/425
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Hole Three Par 3
180/160/151/143
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Hole Four Par 4
355/331/312/297
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Hole Five Par 5
527/509/490/483
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Hole Six Par 3
164/141/120/105
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