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Written for Regional golf magazines. A thank you to Lowell Schmidt - Publisher Emeritus at The Jersey Golfer a great pal and an even greater fellow. Fathers and Sons in Golf
Many of us in the golf world have our fathers to thank for our start in golf; some have just started tagging along with a busy dad, some have built a lifelong successful career with or because of Dad. Even the USGA honors fathers every year by scheduling the final round of the USGA Open Championship, our nation’s most important golf tournament, on Father’s Day giving us all a free pass to sit on the couch and watch or if we are fortunate enough to have the Open nearby attend the championship in person. The connection of Fathers and Sons in golf is staggering in the depth and breath of the connections.
On a world-wide level, Earl Woods’ love of the game was instilled in young Eldrick by the very young age of two allowing the young Tiger to flourish before age 3 starting with an appearance alongside Bob Hope on the Mike Douglas Show to showcase his talents two months before his third birthday. Now in his eleventh year as a professional, it seems likely that he will retire before he surrenders his number one spot in the world rankings and seems unstoppable in his childhood quest to surpass the records of the great Jack Nicklaus.
Tiger Woods has also built on the legacy of mainstream popular growth of the game like no other since Arnold Palmer. Deacon Palmer started The King on his way to become the world’s most popular athlete in the 1960’s. His reign at the top was cut short by none other than Jack Nicklaus, Tiger’s target in greatness. Tiger has been able to combine the populist hero status of Arnold Palmer with the greatest player mantle of Nicklaus, the one thing for which many of Arnie’s Army never forgave Jack. Arnold’s legacy as the King persists even to today as he often appears in the top 10 lists of most influential sports figures. Deacon instilled in Arnold the love for the game of golf that arguably led to the opening of the floodgates of endorsement and status for all top athletes.
New Jersey is home to Rees Jones, revered as the current “Open Doctor” for the USGA. He has been called in to add further teeth, yet fairness to courses such as Baltusrol Lower, Bethpage Black, Torrey Pines and Congressional just to name a few Open venues. His architectural practice has turned out such gems as NJ’s Forest Course at Fiddler’s Elbow, renovations of Canoe Brook’s North Course, and Walker Cup site Ocean Forest. Rees father - Robert Trent Jones, Sr., was born in England, but in the USA in the 1960’s created the demand for signature golf courses, ensuring celebrity status for the golf course architect. It is said that the sun never sets on a Robert Trent Jones golf course. Rees learned the craft as a young boy going to sites with his father to survey golf courses. RTJ, Jr. is perhaps a little better known in the western US, but the Jones family is certainly a dynasty in American golf course architecture. There is also the story of Larry Hall, a well-respected golf professional in his own right originally playing golf for the University of Miami golf team in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s. He and his two brothers were introduced to the game in Madison, CT at the little 9-hole club where their father was the professional. As Larry tells the story, the course’s proximity to the coast sometimes determined whether they played golf or went swimming but to this day the legacy is carried forth for Larry as he is very successfully representing the Mizuno Golf Company in New Jersey and parts of New York and his brother Glenn Hall is currently the Director of Golf at St. Andrews CC of Boca Raton, Florida.
Born in Metuchen, NJ, William J Walsh, now of Philadelphia and Florida started his own golf dynasty in New Jersey. Holding memberships at Metuchen, Plainfield and Pine Valley he is father to 16 children including seven sons, virtually all of the siblings play golf. The grown men are all golfers and get together with Dad at least yearly, sometimes going to Ireland the family’s ancestral home. They are perhaps a story unlike any other in American golf. William has been the highly respected President of the Golf Association of Philadelphia (GAP). Eldest son Michael, former junior club champion at Philadelphia CC has been a friend of mine back to college years at Florida but has yet not been able to introduce me to his entire family is a successful wine expert and avid golfer. The youngest son P. Chet is a legendary competitive golfer in the GAP and well-known to New Jersey’s top competitive golfers. Perhaps most famously, youngest son Brendan holds the Director of Golf position at The Country Club of Brookline, MA (One of the five founding clubs of the USGA) He has been there since prior to the exciting 1999 Ryder Cup held there.
Head Professional Mickie Gallagher III at the Trump National Club in Bedminster is son of Mickey Jr. I knew Mickey Jr. as a kid in Florida through my Dad who was the building Inspector for the town of Atlantis, FL. Mickey, Jr. was pro at the Atlantis Golf Club, then at the Everglades Club in Palm Beach, now at PGA National, still going strong in his 70’s. Mickie III beat Mickey Jr. for the first time at age 16, fondly remembering that he did it at the exclusive Seminole Golf Club. Again, the game of golf permeates the entire family. Mickie’s boss Mr. Trump is often seen with his son and daughter playing at his many courses.
Mickie and his dad tie it all together for me. I played my first Palm Beach County High School 18-hole tournament at Atlantis. Mickey attended Wake Forest with a guy named Arnold Palmer before Arnold went off to join the Coast Guard. My Dad idolized Arnold Palmer and as we watched his famous charges in the early 1960’s, I had to get into golf. I like to say that I got into golf when Arnold Palmer was Tiger Woods; most people get that connection.
The connections are endlessly entwined. I am oft quoted as saying that golf is somewhere between a religion and a disease. It certainly runs in families.
Thanks to Dads, everywhere.
... also originally for the Jersey Golfer Ridge at Back Brook
Now that the clubhouse has been finished and is open at the Ridge at Back Brook, the club is complete. The course and its conditioning have been first rate from opening day, but the clubhouse wasn’t finished until this August. The clubhouse style is almost more reminiscent of a ski lodge in Jackson, Wyoming, than a golf club in the New Jersey countryside. One feels in the homey spaciousness and comfort of the building something similar to the Tom Fazio golf course out the back of the structure.
Recently I toured the clubhouse and played the course again with head professional/ director of golf former PGA Tour pro Joey Rassett. 7100 yards is more than most players can handle by a long shot, but the skills of a former Tour Pro on display make the course seem so much more manageable. This is, however, a demanding golf course for all levels of players. It is straight in front of you with no tricks. Over 300 acres were generously used for the routing. Longer walks are present between 3 and 4, 9 and 10, 10 and 11 but otherwise greens are near the next tees.
The par 5’s when driven as well as Pro Rassett can yield birdies and even eagles, but lesser skilled players can find themselves hoping to make their subtle breaking putts for double bogey. The course is fairly friendly, but not at all a pushover. Subtlety is a big part of the golf course at Back Brook. The heroic forced carries and wildly breaking greens of some other courses are not here to punish you. The fairways are generous, the bunkers placed to guide you rather than punish you and the greens while having places where you don’t want to go give you subtle breaks more often than hugely breaking Augusta National kind of contours to deal with.
The layout is also built with fun in mind with five par 3’s and five par 5’s. The scratch and low handicap players enjoy more par 5’s as they see more chances for birdies while the mid-handicappers enjoy more par 3’s. The par fives are all theoretically reachable in two shots and the generous fairways encourage you to reach back and give a little more with confidence. The “signature hole” candidate seventh hole has a fairway which flattens out at the end of the landing area and presents the golfer who pulls of the correct tee shot with two beautiful fairway options split by bunkers and exposed rock ledges. If the pin is front or left, the left fairway is the way to go while right and back pins are better accessed via the right fairway. It is a beautiful and elegant hole. Mr. Fazio has written in his coffee table book that he likes to build every hole to be a signature hole. At The Ridge at Back Brook, holes 2, 5, 7, 12 and 18 are all strong candidates for the title.
The fifth and eighteenth holes both cascade down a hill and have a forced carry hazard at the end of the descent, but to rather different green complexes. The 18th gives you a very scenic exposed rock formation and a more forgiving green to allow you to finish the round with a smile on your face as you putt for birdie if you pulled off the approach properly. Perhaps my favorite par 5 is the eleventh with its wide and contoured green open at the left and well bunkered in the middle. It plays without significant elevation change and requires thought in the second or third shot to the green, a hallmark of a great par 5. It is the kind of hole in which one looks deep into his psyche to find when to and when not to pull the trigger on the “Tiger” shot. It is more low-lying and subtle than most of the other holes, but it is a thinking man’s hole.
The par 3’s from the stunning twelfth with its green jutting out into the pond to the devilish short 17th with a vicious ridge on the left side vary in length form well over 200 yards to only 150. A double set of tees on the eighth hole to me did not add much as the hole is more interesting with the angle from the lower left versus the upper right sets of tees.
The par fours all provide challenge if not strategic variability. Rather long holes (4,16) well over 400 yards are balanced by sub 400 yard holes (1, 9, 13) and there is a good balance of right to left to match the predominant left to right tee shot requirements.
The greens are perfect and beg for speed which will please the good putter. The sand in the bunkers is as consistent as I have recently encountered and the fairways are just right, not too tight or too long. An exceptional day of golf awaits the members of The Ridge and their fortunate guests. |
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