Formed in 1887, Essex County is New Jersey’s oldest country club. By 1900, an 18-hole Alex Findlay golf course had formed. Years later the club moved a few miles to its current location where budding architect A.W Tillinghast designed and built the course atop a massive hill. Tillinghast’s design gained attention quickly and helped springboard his career to projects at Winged Foot and San Francisco Golf Club.
Amid the booming golden age of golf architecture in the 1920s, Seth Raynor was brought in to expand the club to 36 holes. Raynor’s plans included 11 new holes and maintained seven from Tillinghast’s original design (Nos. 1-6, 9). Alongside this redesign of the original course, a “lower course,” Francis A. Byrne Golf Course – which became public in the 1960s and was sold off to the county in the 1970s – was built. Following Raynor’s death in 1926, Charles Banks carried out his design plans and completed the course later that year. In 2004, the club continued its tradition of working with an up-and-coming architect and hired Gil Hanse to create a long-term master plan. Twenty years later, a large-scale renovation was carried out by Hanse Golf Design to redesign the first hole, rebuild all the bunkers (and reinstate some lost ones), and add drainage.
Essex County Country Club (ECCC) is the definition of old school. Much of the design is original and maintains that vintage look because earth moving was only utilized to build bunkers, mounds, and green pads. This type of construction method allows the natural undulations of the landscape to shine and creates bold golf holes that play over steep slopes. Since most of the front nine predates the back nine by 10 years, it certainly has a slightly different look and feel to the typical overt nature of Raynor and Banks golf courses. The severity of the land creates even more distinction between the two nines. The final nine is often referred to as “the best back nine in New Jersey” as its rolling topography creates many dramatic holes, including several Macdonald-Raynor templates.
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Take Note…
The Great Inventor. Interestingly enough, Thomas Edison, the inventor of the incandescent lightbulb, was a member of Essex County Country Club.
Aloha. A unique tradition of ECCC is the “aloha bet,” which can be applied on the 18th hole for double or nothing. This tends to make things very interesting considering the final hole is a 490-yard par 4 with approach shots playing uphill over 40 feet.
