The Tillinghast Course
Golf Course Architect A.W. TillinghastThe Ridgewood golf course today is considered one of the best in the country. Golf Digest in 1989 ranked it seventy-sixth nationally – one of the hundred top courses in America for the first time. In 1985 the American Society of Golf Course Architects included the course among the top 1 percent of all courses built in this country before 1962. In 2007 Golf Magazine ranked the course No. 87 in the United States and Golfweek has it eighty-first on its list of the Best Classical Courses in the country.
The current course was designed by noted architect A.W. Tillinghast in 1929. Tillinghast gave Ridgewood three outstanding nine-hole courses, any two of which can be (and have been) combined for tournament play. Although not exceptionally large, averaging 5,000 to 6,000 square feet, many of the greens bear the Tillinghast signature – severely sloping, typically from back to front, and protected by deep bunkers at the front corners. These features are overshadowed by the century-old trees that line the fairways, making position off the tee such a key ingredient for scoring well, often forcing the better players to club down for accuracy. The trees also serve to isolate each hole from those nearby, creating a scene of splendid tranquility. And there are no letup holes at Ridgewood, each in the true Tillinghast tradition able to stand on its own two feet. The Center Nine rises to a small hill that dominates the layout, with the East and West Nines falling away into separate natural drainage areas.
Like most other great Tillinghast courses, Ridgewood’s has undergone very little substantive change over the years. The tilt of the 3 East green was eased in 1932, and the right bunker was extended out across the front of the 8 East green in 1935, making that hole more challenging.
3 East GreenThe severely sloping 3 East green originally had an even more drastic downslope at the front, so steep that it was next to impossible to stop a putt coming down the incline. In 1932 a group of members led by Ian MacCallum contributed to the cost of rebuilding the front of the green. Tillinghast served on the committee that supervised the work.
As the 1930s wore on, the greens at 1 East and 9 East and 1 Center deteriorated. There was no pond at that time, just a salt marsh with reeds that ran from the back of the swimming pool all the way to the woods between 1 East green and 9 East tee. Players who hit their ball to the right on either hole would find the marsh. During the dry days of the summer, when the marsh dried out, they would walk into the marsh to retrieve their balls, or play a shot where the ball lay. They would then track salt from the marsh to those greens and fairways, causing a soil imbalance.
Since Tillinghast had resigned his membership and moved to the west coast, the club hired a young architect from Montclair by the name of Robert Trent Jones. His solution to the problem was to build a pond at its present location near the pool and use the soil from the dig to fill in the marsh from the pond to the woods, providing a level area between the holes. Several willow trees were planted in this area, all of which had fallen into the pond by 1995, and were replaced in 1996. Six pine trees were planted there in 1979. Jones also reworked the 1 and 9 East and 1 Center greens, making them larger, the only three on the course larger than Tillinghast had thought necessary for the shot required to reach them.
At the same time, or shortly thereafter, Jones capped a spring to the left and back of the 2 East green. The spring would bubble over, creating a pond between the 2 East and 8 East greens that emptied into a stream that passed in front of the 3 East tee. A small bridge spanned that stream. Jones installed a pump that sent the spring water to the water tower, and ultimately to the clubhouse.
Both Robert Trent Jones and son Rees have consulted at RCC.
Late in 1936, the club put an addition on the clubhouse out toward the back tee on 1 East, and, of course, there were some golfers who put their tee shots through the new windows. The tee at 1 East had been a problem from the start, as golfers also hit their tee shots into the pool (and the marsh). And so the 1 East tee was moved forward at this time.
The greens Robert Trent Jones changed remain, but since that time, the club has brought in the best available golf architects strictly as surrogates for A. W. Tillinghast. Their mission has always been to bring the course closer and closer to the original Tillinghast concept.
Throughout the years there has been the ever-present suggestion that 7 East be made into a par 5 by relocating the tee and/or green. In 1953 a petition was circulated and $4,000 pledged to defray the cost. The board vetoed the idea. It is still the most difficult hole on the course, playing to 4.5 for scratch golfers.
A cross bunker in front of the fairway at 6 Center, which had been a difficult obstacle for the ladies, was removed in 1972. More recently (1982) a bunker seldom in play behind the 7 East green was converted to grass. On 2 East there once was a tree between the bunker and the green; it was cut down some thirty years ago. Similar fates befell a bunker right of the fairway on 8 East and one left of the fairway near the mound on 4 Center.
In 1978, the club was having problems with the greens because of the lack of sunlight and airflow. After over a year of consulting with turf experts, the club hired Rees Jones to address this problem, and to restore the course in such a way as to bring it as close as possible to its original design. During the years 1979 to 1984, Jones devised ways to bring in sunlight. Many trees were removed, and some of the magnificent towering oak trees were cut back during the winters to give air and sunlight to the tees and greens, and roots were pruned to protect the fairway turf. The tree-removal project was accelerated in the aftermath of hurricane Gloria in 1985. The course was closed for three to four days, and every tree removal company available was hired. Approximately five hundred trees came down as a result of that storm.
Jones came after an icy winter that was followed by a cold spring during which the weakened grass had a hard time growing. He found that the club over the years had let the greens shrink and the sand to build up around the edges. Using Tillinghast’s “as-built” drawings as a guide, he restored the greens to their original dimensions and built two of the four originally planned tees on 4 West. In addition, in preparation for the new course watering system, he widened the pond at 1 and 9 East, narrowing the approach to the 9 East green and used the soil from the bottom of the pond as filler for several new tees (the back tee at 5 East, the left tee at 6 East, and the 7 Center tee, which was widened). Jones also put in the front right bunker at 9 East green and added a new back tee at 7 West, a front tee at 9 East and ladies’ tees at 3 Center, 3 West, 4 West, and 7 West.
In 1985 a whole new computerized irrigation system was installed, replacing one that had been state-of- the-art in the 1930s. Lightweight triplex mowing of all twenty-seven fairways was instituted in 1986, as was a multi-year program to renovate all bunkers on the course.
The club completed the Audubon Cooperative Sanctuary Program in 1996 with the
RCC Consulting Architect Gil Hanse assistance of then greens superintendent John Gasper, and has been recertified every two years thereafter. Each time, the club has demonstrated its proficiency in Environmental Planning, Wildlife and Habitat Management, Member and Public Involvement, Integrated Pest Management, Water Conservation, and Water Quality Management. The club has categorized forty-nine different birds, fifteen reptiles, twelve amphibians, and eighteen mammals living on the property.
Over the last few years, golf architect Gil Hanse worked on the course implementing the Golf Course Master Plan. His plan, created in 2001, included some restoration work as well as some new directions. He added some completely new tees, has restored Tillinghast’s false fronts at 2 West, 5 West and 5 East, and removed the high rough preceding the greens at 2 East, 1 Center and 2 West that prevented poor shots from reaching the greens, restoring the holes as originally designed. Hanse moved a few bunkers further out in the fairway in recognition of today’s driving length. The bunker work was done “in house” by assistant greens superintendent Chris Walick, who was guided by old pictures of the course.
Superintendent Todd Raisch implemented Hanse's plans, his crew starting in 2002 and finishing before the start of the 2006 season. Their work was extensive, including building new pro and ladies’ tees, rebuilding/ enlarging several men’s tees, expanding a number of fairways, rebuilding numerous bunkers, planting and transplanting trees, landscaping, and fencing, as well as the ongoing tree work. During the last five years, nearly thirteen hundred trees have been removed from the grounds. In 2005 the new irrigation system was installed and the new maintenance building and pump house were built. In 2007, several wet fairways were drained and in 2008 all of the greens had internal drainage installed.
