High Bridge Hills Golf Club in western New Jersey is unheralded but likely not underrated, under-appreciated but probably not under-subscribed. I say this as someone with quick access to the Internet who has been to the golf club exactly twice.
My first observation: Fun track.
My first question: Who knew?
We played High Bridge Hills the last week in April. For golfers who live west of New York City or are willing to travel an hour twenty west of the Big Apple, it offers an outstanding value with season rates between $51 (after 1 p.m. weekdays) and $79 (before 1 p.m. weekends), and off-peak discounts for local residents, which is understandable as the course is owned by the Borough of High Bridge. Designed by Mark A. Mungeam of Mungeam and Cornish (yes, that's renowned golf course architect Geoffrey Cornish), High Bridge Hills opened in midsummer of 1999 so, owing partly to our enthusiasm for milestones, a timely report makes all the more sense as High Bridge Hills marks a significant anniversary this summer.
Ceremony aside, High Bridge Hills (HBH) is routed over the treeless slopes, hills and moderate valleys of an old farm. Aside from the imposing red barn sited on the highpoint of the property, the course's distinctive visual flavor -- and much of its challenge -- resides in the unobstructed windswept terrain, the hillsides, valleys and swales, and, most significantly, the tall fescue grass that grows untended and gnarly, blowing in the wind from spring through summer. These tall grasses, which are essentially the secondary rough, constitute a visually intimidating golf-ball-swallowing menace hazard for anyone not in control of his tee shot. "If you hit into it, don't count on finding yours," writes Kevin McKay, High Bridge's director of golf. "You may find others, but never yours."
With that said, I went anticipating a three-star experience because my best available bookshelf resource -- Golf Digest's Places to Play (2002 edition) -- had given it exactly that number. My expectations were more than met by the golf course. High Bridge is memorable and had me easily recalling all holes two weeks after playing it. HBH was challenging in the 20- to 25-mile-per-hour winds we played in but not preposterously difficult, although I'm mindful that the rough hadn't yet reached mid-season ferocity. Later, when I saw HBH listed among a New Jersey golf association's top 30 public courses in the state, I thought it belonged comfortably in that group.
Would I go back? Would I recommend it to friends? The short answer to both is yes. Aside from the course, HBH has a few key virtues, foremost among them accessibility. From New York City and the populous northeastern part of New Jersey, the club is three miles north of Interstate 78 (via Route No. 31 at exit 17) but once you're playing, you're fairly removed from reminders of modernization and encroaching suburbia, save for a few westerly vistas that include the scenic Spruce Run Reservoir and one immense example of Alan Greenspan's housing bubble suburban tract housing. If you happen to be close enough to consider HBH as a practice facility, it has a well-maintained grass range and a large practice putting green where, thankfully on a return weekday afternoon visit, I saw no sign discouraging chipping.
The other outstanding attribute of High Bridge Hills that distinguishes it from its peers is that it was built and is owned by the borough and, hence, is a muni. It's testament that very good things can get done under government auspices, although the story is more complicated than that simple observation. Frank Hannigan, the former USGA executive director, authored a 1999 Golf Digest story of how HBH came into existence over 10 years ago. The story is strong on explaining how the project was financed, but it also has a decidedly optimistic tone so as to share borough revenue projections without injecting a scintilla of skepticism that should accompany any projection.
When we played, it had been not long after the putting surfaces were aerated, so it was tough to get a sense of the greens Mungeam had designed. Playing through the prevailing winds out of the west, however, I could see most would be receptive to a number of different approaches, meaning you could fly the ball to the hole or run it up via ground game. That would show an awareness of the windswept character of the land and be wholly in keeping with what Mungeam recalls as his mandate to create an open, "Irish links-inspired design."
One exception of note is the eighth hole, a par 3 over an impassable ravine that calls for a purely struck mid- or long-iron with tees that measure 152, 191 and, from the very back, 229 yards. Fun as it is to arrive on the tee, the narrow (meaning neither deep nor especially receptive) green left me scratching my head wondering about the caliber of golfers Mungeam thought would play the course. The architect told me in a subsequent conversation that the 229-yard tee was created "as a talking point," and "the green complex is not conducive to a shot from 220," as he realized very few people can hit the kind of high approach that lands softly on a green from those outer tees.
Still, after medium and short par 3s at Nos. 4 and 6, respectively, a more challenging par 3 would seem to await and this one fits the bill. From tee to green, it drops about 50 to 60 feet and gives players who hit their ball with only moderately high trajectories the fleeting illusion that they've struck the kind of high, soft shot that's called for. In my case, the illusion lasted until my shot fell back to the earth, short of the green into a bunker that left me staring into the 10-foot grassed slope that fronts the right side of the green.
Long before we arrived at No. 8, however, the flavor of HBH had won me over. The second and seventh holes are both terrific dogleg-right holes, the former working downhill, the latter uphill to an elevated green. The front nine, with the three 3-pars and a par of 35, measures 3,063 from the back tees (and 3,286 from the tournament tees). Because of the openness and its siting on a western-facing slope, it plays both longer (due to the prevailing wind) and (here's a new one, weather mavens) about five to eight-degrees colder than you'd expect. (Hey, when the boys at Styled to a Tee visit a golf course, we always take note of apparel-layering options.)
After pastoral holes at 10 and 11, the back nine's character changes somewhat and it's here where you either muscle up and embrace HBH or it breaks you. The tee shots at Nos. 13 and 16 draw you back into wooded/wetland shoots, calling for blind tee shots -- on 13 stay right and take dead aim over the birdhouse -- that reward both competence with the tee ball and local knowledge. The 15th -- Mungeam's favorite hole -- is a par 5 with a sloping right-to-left fairway. Aiming safely to the right off the tee, with a right-to-left ball flight, will allow a tee shot to gain ground around a corner and present the opportunity to reach the green in two, as it measures 474 and 505 yards from the back two sets of tees. Forewarned is forearmed and I'll know better next time to skip the lay-up, as my second 5-iron left me with a distressing 30-yard pitch.
Doing further Internet research on High Bridge Hills -- my wife is a cyber crime expert, so I spend evenings googling golf courses -- I found that Golf Digest's Best Places to Play, the online version of those bound books, had upgraded it to four stars. I do think that's a fair grade for the golf course, but it also prompts an interesting discussion about golf course ratings, one of our pet subjects. As the process tends to be wildly subjective at best and flawed at worst, it's not our job to go out and assign stars, but rather to evaluate the experience in terms of the value it offers. In other words, the most sophisticated restaurant critics don't concern themselves with the number of stars, but whether the experience meets expectations and delivers value. Namely the $9 chicken-and-rice dish, smothered in garlic and onions, served at the counter of a local greasy spoon with a $2 beer is absolutely as satisfying as the $24.50 chicken entree with a $49 bottle of white wine served by knowledgeable waitstaff at a cozy table with pressed linen and killer flatware.
So when I found that High Bridge Hills had been given the additional star, I had mixed feelings, not because the golf course doesn't deserve it. When you get into that territory, I think it's a statement about not only routing, conditioning and a course's character, but the overall experience: warm-up and practice facility, clubhouse, snack & dining options, 19th hole, golf shop.
With Hannigan's Golf Digest article serving as something of an historical record, it's fair to say that HBH was neither conceived nor built to be a four-star experience.The clubhouse, golf shop and dining operation -- housed inside a converted and permanent double doublewide measuring approximately 50 x 75-feet -- are functional. As I stared the clubhouse, with that massive barn looming behind it atop the hill in the background, I was left wondering what if they had transformed that stately barn into a clubhouse instead of its present use: a cart storage and maintenance facility? In the hands of a talented architect, there might even have been a loft level for offices and residence for apprentice golf pros or hospitality manager. Alas, the course was developed and is owned by the borough so, possibly with budgetary discipline foremost, such considerations might be viewed as frivolous.
Regardless, demographic factors, population growth being what they are, I imagine HBH has a bright future. HBH does about 30,000 rounds per year and maintains a 12-month schedule, McKay, the golf director, shared with us. In another 10 years, when it's time to look at the master plan, I hope I'm around to volunteer to serve pro bono on the architectural review committee to weigh options for an expanded clubhouse with more elaborate locker, dining facilities and golf shop. If those who make such decisions doubt the power of transformative design, they need look no further than their outstanding golf course and how it sprang from an unsuspecting piece of fallow farmland. -- Robert Lohrer
Epilogue: I hope to revisit High Bridge Hills, both in person and in this blog, for at least two reasons discussed in this post. The first is the issue of design and grooming. McKay, the director of golf who issued the warning on errant tee shots, further shares that the character of the course can change from day to day depending on weather and season to season depending on the fescues. Furthermore, on the issue of design, Mungeam is far less well known than mentor Geoffrey Cornish, but it would be interesting to see if stylistic influences can be detected and to make further notations of the greens and their accessibility in windy conditions.
HBH is a muni, although it really doesn't feel like one. That's probably because while it's owned by the borough, it's managed by a private company, Billy Casper Golf. In this case, the financing, profitability (for the borough) and the soundness of an investment in a golf course are, more or less, a matter of public financial record and so might serve as a model for future projects. All those numbers can be weighed and parsed, scrutinized and subdivided in a return-on-investment analysis that considers such intangibles as quality of life, the addition of a major green public amenity, and civic pride. All that analysis seems relatively easy and somewhat enticing, especially when it can be benchmarked and measured against the projections published in Hannigan's 1999 article. -- Robert Lohrer
Sounds both beautiful and challenging.
I plan to cross that Bridge when I get to it.
Posted by: Tom Quinn | May 20, 2009 at 03:36 PM
To be frank, I plan to crisscross that Bridge when I get to it. Not as accurate a golfer as I used to be.
Posted by: Tom Quinn | May 20, 2009 at 04:01 PM