A.W. Tillinghast is one the best known, and most respected, and occasionally feared, golf course architects of Golf’s Golden Age. Builder of US Open, and PGA, Championship venues like Winged Foot and Bethpage Black in New York and Jersey’s own Baltusrol C.C., Tillinghast made many of America’s top golf courses competed on by almost every one of the biggest names in the Game from Jones to Arnie to Jack and Tiger for more than a hundred years.
As it turns out, The Jersey Shore boasts a couple of Tillie’s personal favorite designs that members, and the, have enjoyed on a daily basis for around a hundred years each.
Old Orchard, Country Club Suneagles Golf Club and Jumping Brook Country Club are just three of those signature, and much beloved, Tillinghast creations located in southern Monmouth County.
Old Orchard Country Club, in Eatontown, now the only open-to-the-public of the three featured courses, was drawn up by Tillie and opened for play in 1929. Although set to close sometime soon, Old Orchard is still open for golf and has been an area favorite for generations. Built upon some 6,679 yards of beautiful land still sporting apple trees from the orchard upon which it was originally constructed, Old Orchard, which Borders Routes 36 and 71 is a true step right into the past. Often played by New York Yankees’ Baseball Hall of Famer and Legend, Babe Ruth, OOCC features the “charms of antiquity” and is a ”natural oasis” amid the hustle and bustle of the Jersey Shore and is worth the trip and even a poor round played by any lover of the Game.
Also located in Eatontown, and probably less than about two miles to the east and north, Suneagles Golf Club, is a terrific, and challenging, Tillinghast masterpiece. About to celebrate its hundred-year anniversary, Suneagles, which began as The Suneagles Golf Course at Fort Monmouth, had its very first tee shot driven upon it way back in 1926 on land owned by Max Phillips of the Phillips Van Heusen Clothing Company.
But it’s biggest claims to fame is probably, well undoubtedly actually, the fact that World Golf Hall of Famer Byron Nelson, “Lord Byron”, then a Texas transfer and an assistant golf professional at Ridgewood Country Club up in Bergen County, won his very first professional tournament, the 1935 NJSGA New Jersey Open, on its winding, manicured fairways and Tillinghast’s traditionally tricky, sloping greens. The home of Nelson’s initial professional victory gives the Monmouth County course quite a unique, and revered, standing in the hallowed pantheon of the historic Jersey Shore Golfing Community in Southern Monmouth County right along Hollywood Golf Club and Deal Golf and Country Club, and Manasquan River Country Club, among others.
Suneagles, once open to public play, but that only recently went 100% private, was also the site of a famous runner-up finish at the 1967 All-Army Tournament by 1969 US Open champion, and 11-time PGA Tour winner, Orville “Sarge” Moody.
Oh, and another neat thing for Suneagles is that Nelson’s fellow World Golf Hall of Famer Sam Snead, “Slammin’ Sammy”, who enjoyed some Jersey Shore success of his very own as well by winning the 1942 PGA, his first major championship, at Seaview’s Bay and Pines Courses down by Atlantic City, shot Suneagles’ course record (-7).
How’s that for a little bit of golf course history? Not too shabby, right?
So is a hundred years, and that’s exactly what members of nearby Jumping Brook Country Club located in Neptune, are celebrating right now. Opened in 1925, Jumping Brook is an absolutely terrific example of Tillie Architecture at its very best.
“ Jumping Brook is just a fantastic layout that is the very definition of “old school”,” said Jumping Brooks’ P.G.A. Director of Golf Mark Bryson.
“ The members, the owners, all of us are so exciting to be turning 100,” Bryson added. “ There’s a lot of very cool history here. Mr. Tillinghast built a real gem here in Neptune when he designed Jumping Brook Country Club.”
With some surprising elevations which makes golfers think they’re nowhere near the Atlantic Coast only miles away, strategic bunkering and twisting and turning fairways leading Tillinghast’s signature sloping, slanting, and sometimes diabolical greens, Jumping Brook is a dandy of a course that challenges golfers from tee to pin.
“ The green complexes here demand a really good short game,” said Bryson. “ If you’re going to score at Jumping Brook, as with any Tillinghast course, your chipping and putting game had better be on point. And that’s the way we like it.”
Jumping Brooks’ emphasis on good putting is put to the test right off the bat. Hole No.1, though only 292 yards from the Back, or Blue, tees plays down from an elevated Tee to a fairway in a valley and then back up to a green that slants severely from Back to Front. It is very, very easy to putt your ball off the front of the green, even with the flag in the middle of the putting surface.
“ One is a hole that some people remember the most because of its down and up design and the green,” Bryson said. “ But all 18 holes are, truly, memorable and very different from one another. That’s one of the things about Tillie. Part of his greatness as an architect, and why I think so many people love playing Jumping Brook, and all his courses, is that no two holes are too much alike. Each and every hole is like its own little masterpiece.”
Recent, and significant, investments by the owners, the Epstein Family, have revitalized the course and clubhouse in recent years, making Jumping Brook into the original golfing destination that Tillinghast dreamed of while creating one of the area’s premier social sites in Monmouth County.
“ When you’re talking about the great golf architects, names like Donald Ross and Willie Park Jr., both Scotsman, are always mentioned, but so is A.W.(Tillinghast), and rightly so. The man was an absolute genius.”
And it’s Tillinghast’s genius which helped build the game of Golf into what it has become in America, and Tillie’s influence right here at The Jersey Shore with grand old courses like Jumping Brook, Suneagles and Old Orchard is tremendous source of pride for Garden State golfers of every level.
Old Orchard Country Club
54 Monmouth Rd, Eatontown, NJ 07724
732-542-7666
Suneagles Golf Club
2000 Lowther Dr, Eatontown, NJ 07724
732-389-4300
Jumping Brook Country Club
210 Jumping Brook Road, Neptune, NJ 07753
732-922-6140
