There were some outstanding restorations that came on-line this year including the remarkable resurgence of Crestwood G.C. from the brink of extinction and Tom Doak’s superb work at North Shore C.C., but Gil Hanse and Jim Wagner take home top honors this year for the astounding restoration work at Rockaway Hunting Club.
We’ll have a longer article soon, but if you want to see what a pure Devereux Emmet course is supposed to look like, there are four places – Garden City, St. Georges, Leatherstocking, and now Rockaway Hunting Club. The gorgeous natural mounding and wrap-around bunkers look like they are right out of 1920. The routing takes full advantage of the cheerful neighborhood on the one hand and the seaside holes on the other. The terrain has great vertical movement in the earth, (so you get excellent U.K. style ground game options). and excellent horizontal sweep to the fairways, so you must strategically plan your way around the hazards.
Now here’s the amazing thing – nine holes were designed by A.W. Tillinghast! (The seaside holes for the most part.) What’s fascinating is that the Tillie holes here – because of their waterside setting – look nothing like anything we’ve seen from Tillie anything else. Therefore, they are a museum piece and treasure in their own right.
We’ll have a much longer piece soon breaking this quintessential Golden Age course hole by hole soon, but everyone should see both the marvelous work Hanse and team did and the superlative design principles the course espouses.
