Architects GC
Lapatcong, NJ
2001, Stephen Kay (Scotland Run) & Ron Whitten (Golf Digest Senior Editor, Golf Course Architecture & Rankings)
Black: 6863, 71
Gold: 6532
Blue: 6172
Directions: NJ I-78 Exit 3
22 W
R onto Rt 519, L on Strykers, course is 2.5 mi on R
'10 Greens fees: $95 weekend ride prime time, $80 Early Bird 6AM-6:50AM, $74 weekday ride, plus $65-$81 Twilight, and $55-$65 Super Twilight tiers.
Golf Digest Review: Golf more than occasionally over-dramatizes the significance of its past. In truth, rather than read about history, a good number of golfers would rather just play it. At The Architects Golf Club, they get to do just that.
The course, near the PA/NJ border, introduces golfers to the game's founding fathers of course design, thanks to two men with a sense of style to match their sense of history: Architect Stephen Kay designed the course with assistance from Ron Whittan, Golf Digest architecture editor since 1989.
The real success at Architects isn't so much that Kay and Whittan have introduced us to the subtleties of C.B. Macdonald, Alister Mackenzie, Donald Ross and Robert Trent Jones, among others - though they have. It isn't about the penal design philosophy of Walter Travis or the three different bunker styles of A.W. Tillinghast or the insidious Redan-like challenge espoused by Charles Henry Banks-though they have. It isn't even that they have managed to produce a seamless layout whose holes look as though they have been there for decades, not months-though they have. No, the real treat of Architects is that it doesn't matter whether you care a hoot about Devereux Emmet or William Flynn, you'll just dig playing the golf course.
Especially noteworthly are the demanding par-4 fourth, with its massive fairway bunker and wild green, the gambling par-5 13th, which has a destinctive Augusta National feel, and the major-league 17th hole, so good, so authentic that Stanley Thompson wishes he had built as good a par 3.
History may have been the inspiration for this place, but challenging, fun golf is the end result. And that's what makes Architects totally timeless.
T&L Golf Review: Architects' Delight
Playing like a primer on course design through 1955, the Architects Golf Club in Lopatcong, NJ, is a set of challenges inspired by some of the game's great architects. Stephen Kay and Ron Whitten designed the 6,863-yard track, where holes feature the techniques and strategies of designing men from Old Tom Morris to Donald Ross to Robert Trent Jones. You'll hit your first tee shot from one of Old Tom's trademark square tee boxes to a fairway bordered by a stone wall. Chocolate-drop mounds and a sloping, tiered green lurk at the penal, Walter Travis-style fifth hole, a par-four adventure that measures only 355 yards. The 412-yard seventh, with traps like those at Bethpage and Winged Foot, pays tribute to the creative bunkering of A.W. Tillinghast. Closing the front nine is a spectacular, Ross-inspired 447-yard par-four to a green that undulates like stormy seas.
The home nine opens with a pair of risk-reward dilemmas in the styles of George Thomas and William Flynn. The thirteenth, a 524-yard par five, is an Alister Mackenzie impersonator notable for its elaborate bunkers. Your tour of inspired designs ends at a Jonesian par four with a pinched fairway and a green that covers 13,500 square feet. Be sharp with the last full swing-a lazy approach can leave you a 100-foot putt.