Thus far, I have written about a few golf courses in the Montgomery County area that I have enjoyed for assorted reasons, but one course stands out as the best of the best when it comes to public courses. Jeffersonville Golf Club is not only one of the best public golf courses in the area, but it may also be one of the best in the country. Sounds crazy, but when you think of cost, design, condition, playability, and history it is a local treasure.
Jeffersonville was designed by the great Donald Ross, who is on my Mount Rushmore of golf course designers along with Old Tom Morris, Alister McKenzie and Pete Dye. There is nothing quite like a Donald Ross course. He created courses that fit naturally into their environment, challenges good golfers while still being fair to the average hacker, and his courses feature strategic bunkers, false fronts, and turtle back greens. He has designed some of America’s greatest courses including Pinehurst No.2 (NC), Seminole (FL) and Aronimink in Newtown Square which will host the PGA Championship next year. Of the several courses he designed in the Philadelphia area, Jeffersonville is the only municipal course anyone can play.
In a day and age where exceptional and historic courses can cost hundreds of dollars for 18 holes, Jeffersonville is still an amazingly reasonable price. We are talking under $100 on the weekend and only $60 on a weekday! The hard part is getting a tee time, but for a little extra you can get an advanced booking. It’s no wonder it is listed as one of the best courses you can play for under $100 in the country.
Ross designed the course in 1931, and West Norriton Township wisely bought the course in 1972. Prior to its creation, the land was used for horse racing, thus the jockey uniform and 1931 as the course logo. In 2000 the township began restoring and modernizing the course with an irrigation system, rebuilding of tee boxes, and re-addition of 40 of the original bunkers. But the icing on the cake was the investment of $12 million in their brand-new clubhouse, which was completed last year. The clubhouse features an amazing restaurant and bar, The Burgess, six Trackman golf simulators in the basement called “the Stables”, banquet areas for formal functions, and a fully stocked pro-shop.
Every hole is an example of Ross’s genius, but my favorites are hole 2 and hole 18. Number 2 is a simple, and short, dog leg right. But there are perils surrounding the heavily protected green, making a short approach difficult as well. The green not only has a false front (meaning that anything short or at the front of the green will roll back down from the green) but also has a creek winding around the front and right. Go long, and you're in the netting and shooting up onto a small turtle back green. I have parred this hole and finished with scores I cannot mention in this column.
Hole 18 is a standard distance, par 5 516 yards, but from the first shot to the last you have challenges everywhere. The tee shot is essentially blind, with bunkers to carry on the left and bunkers that could gobble up a long drive on the right. Getting your tee shot in the right spot is always tough. If you’re lucky enough to end up in the fairway, your second shot is another doozy. A pond runs down the left side of the fair, so anything left and you’re toast. To the right is a line of trees blocking a shot at the green. You can go right and still have a chance to hit the green…but man that green. It is a severely sloped green from back to front and right to left. Unless you nail your approach right at the pin, there is no safe place to bail out on this green and a shot to the back of the green could easily roll down to the front left of the green.
Despite the challenges of these holes and the rest of the course, none of it seems unfair at all. In fact, the greens are meticulously kept and roll true every time. If you can put it well, you can score. The bunkers are placed in spots that should penalize an errant shot, but up and downs are doable from any bunker. Even on a bad day, and I’ve had many, the flow of this course is just exceptional. All the holes fit the landscape perfectly, and you are walking through a course with almost 100 years of history. I guarantee there was a guy just like me struggling to break 100 back in 1931. Some things never change.
(The Back Nine is a biweekly op-ed column submitted to North Penn Now, courtesy of Edward Levine. The views expressed are his own and are not representative of North Penn Now or Montgomery County.)
