alexcpark

The East course is beautifully laid out and used to be one of the top public courses you can play in NJ. However, it looks like this part of the course may be turning into housing developments soon…? and therefore the grounds crew is clearly putting zero effort into maintaining their bunkers. The fairways, tee boxes, rough, and greens were all either acceptable to good condition but the bunkers were atrocious. They are either completely dried up concrete feeling mud or filled with standing water that’s becoming basically a pond. Many of the bunkers even have vegetation growing now… basically no sand remaining. With these conditions, the course / pro shop should warn you of the current situation. At the prices they charge, having no playable bunkers is not worthwhile.

I really hope they don’t build a housing development there and start maintaining the course better again. It’s definitely one of the nicer layouts in the area.

My friends and I tee’ed of thinking a mid Fall round of golf at a relatively expensive course would result in a quick round. Little did we know that it would be over 5 hours long. Not only we’re we waiting on every hole, but we saw not only 1 hole but 2 different holes where there was a back up of 4 groups…

The rangers clearly did nothing about the backed up round and the culprit groups didn’t seem to care. It’s too bad given the course itself is in good shape and the layout is enjoyable.

Pound Ridge is about an hour north of the city and is the only Pete Dye course available in the area; it's easily a top 5 NY public course.

It truly lives up to the difficulty hype w/ Dye's signature undulation and meticulously planned challenges. Heck, even distance becomes a factor at times where a handful of holes require carrying 210+ (when hitting from 6700yd Oak tees... ) which is arguably too penal for amateurs . Most holes are narrow and many holes are stacked right next to each other. Facilities are top notch and you truly get what you pay for. The only blemish is that their greens are in terrible condition... some worse than your local munis. Some greens arguably need to be completely redone.

Overall, Pound Ridge is a wonderful course that I'd return to for a special occasion. However, due to the higher cost and bad green conditions, it's hard to recommend as a regular weekend course.

Knob Hill is a beautiful course with a challenging layout. There are numerous holes where trees are guarding the right hand side and as a result, players that hit draws can find the course difficult off the blue tees. Despite being aerated 3 weeks ago, the greens recovered nicely. Cart girl drove by at least 4x during our round and was friendly. Best of all, our 4-some completed our round in 3.5 hours through unimpeded play... hard to beat. Definitely will be back although a bit of a drive from the city.