Golfing a round at Linwood Country Club is definitely a round to remember.
One of the oldest country clubs at the Shore is Linwood Country Club in Linwood, New Jersey. Founded in 1920, with its Herbert Strong designed golf course opening for its first round in March of the following year, Linwood Country Club was, and remains, one of the premiere private golf clubs in all of south Jersey.
A kind of a combination of Seaview Country Club’s historic Bay and Pines courses with its marsh lined 7th, 8th and 9th holes and tree-lined Back Nine’s parkland fairways, Linwood Country Club is, as it was conceived just over a hundred and four years ago, a cozy, and quaint, little masterpiece of the classic golf courses of the great golfing era of the early 1900s.
Opened for play starting in spring 1921, Linwood Country Club is one of the four oldest gold courses at The Shore. Nearby neighbor, Atlantic City Country Club, which began in 1897 just up the road in Northfield, Seaview’s Bay Course(1914) and Cape May Courthouse’s The Shore Club(then the Wildwood Golf and Country Club), which teed off in 1916, are the only three courses which are older.
I am a history lover with a B.A. in History, so the history alone is a big, big reason why I love playing Linwood C.C., but the course is also why I love playing there.
Measuring a fair, but challenging, 6,349 yards from the back, or blue, tees, and a very playable, and thoroughly satisfying, 6,019 yards from the whites, Linwood features three front nine par 3s(#3, #6 and #8) and just three par 5s(#9, #12 and #17).
Linwood’s signature hole is the 520-yard dogleg right par five 17th. The three-shot par 5 features more than 50 yards of Oakmont’s US Open t-inspired “Church Pew” bunkering down the right rough some 150 yards from the green. A dogleg right off the tee, and teeing off over the Club’s Entrance/Eit drive, the better tee ball calls for a slight draw, or right-to-left drive for a right-handed player down the fairway’s left side.
The picturesque 8th hole, meanwhile, a 195-yard par 3 over water and sand, with sand right, and the S shaped par five 9th hole culminate a dramatic and thrilling finish to L.C.C.’s beguiling bayside Front Nine. With a putting surface pitched pretty sharply from Front to Back, Eight is a difficult green to hit, and then to hit and hold. Making a par, which will typically take a good chip and a made putt for an up-and-down a real victory from the back tee box. Nine plays right back to the 10th tee and the clubhouse with a tiny two-tiered green elevated above the fairway with a small pond short and a sand trap guarding the left side and Approach.
Another favorite of mine, and that of LCC’s members, as well, is the exciting Par 5 Twelfth. A drawing tee over the hill and down the speed slot will set up a golfer with a shot, albeit an outside chance, to get on, or near, the green in two. A small pond crosses the fairway at the bottom of the hill and fairway some 150 yards below the raised green. Most golfers are faced with either laying up short of the water and, from there, hitting 150-160-yard third shot to the green or risk carrying the water to be about 100 yards to a pitch, or chip, up the steeply sloped fairway just shy of the crowned green.
The Par 5 Seventeenth is another highlight, driving the ball over the main entrance to the property and with the Oakmont-styled “church-pew” bunkers down the right-hand side. A two tiered green with plenty of slope makes making birdie a serious challenge and carding a par very, very satisfactorily.
Linwood’s prime location with magnificent views of nearby Atlantic City highlight a day at LCC where the Public can come and enjoy it’s many firs-class dining venues like the gorgeous Shay’s Restaurant and Bar and The Fox Den, both overlooking the golf course.
“The appeal of playing Linwood Country Club is the fact that as simple of a course that it appears on paper, it’s frustrating in a great way that it can’t be tamed. Wind, accuracy on the greens, great conditions makes Linwood a must play is the next time you play and you think you’ve got her beat to only fall to her charm,” said Linwood CC’s P.G.A Director of Golf, Jeffrey Bonicky.
Among the many legendary Shore Courses in the greater Atlantic City Region, Linwood Country Club’s place among the Mount Rushmore of Seaview, Atlantic City CC and Greate Bay is a definite gimmee.
For more information go to www.linwoodcountryclub.com
