Essex County Club

‍Favorite Hole

No. 8, par 4, 422 yards

The eighth hole calls for a blind tee shot over a ledge to a split-level fairway, a preview of the big landforms that dominate the back nine at Essex County Club. The low left side borders an out-of-bounds line but provides easier access to most pins on the sharply sloped green. The high right side offers less risk for less reward. Take your pick, commit to your line.

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Overall Thoughts

In both conversation and his presentation of Essex County Club, superintendent Eric Richardson isn’t a big fan of artificiality. “I can’t stand watching the Masters,” he said on an episode of our Superintendent Series last year. “Lush and perfect and the perception of perfection—because Augusta’s not perfect; it’s just the perception that it’s perfect—that’s not golf to me.”

This isn’t just bluster. Under the stewardship of Richardson and consulting architect Bruce Hepner, Essex County has turned away from lushness and committed to low-input maintenance and a rugged aesthetic. The bunkers are not frilly-edged in a fashionable way; they have simple shapes and a worn-in feel. The fairway turf is healthy but doesn’t adhere to a uniform color. Off of the playing areas, the landscape is allowed to be itself. The creek that meanders through several holes is not over-maintained and, as it naturally would, creates marshy areas at low points. Tree removal has opened up the big hill that the back nine plays around and over, so players can now see the unruly terrain, studded by rocks and covered in grasses of varied hues. It looks like New England.

Essex County is living evidence for the benefits of gradual restoration. Renaissance Golf Design didn’t execute an ambitious master plan in one fell swoop. Instead, Hepner built trust with the membership through periodic visits, made small upgrades that snowballed into big upgrades, and developed partnerships with the day-to-day caretakers. That’s why the course feels settled-in and appropriately antique even though it has undergone many changes over the past two decades. It’s also why the course is likely to keep getting better.

“We’re not rushing in and trying to get everything done in a six-month period,” Richardson told us. “We’re just taking our time and working through the property and making sure everything we do is a success and expanding upon that every season.”

Unhurried thoughtfulness has been Essex County’s way for a long time. Donald Ross spent nearly a decade expanding the layout from nine to 18 holes, completing his work in 1917, four years after he had resigned his post as golf professional. The results—like those at Pinehurst No. 2, Ross’s other “home course”—testify to time and care.

The routing is beautifully paced, ratcheting up the intensity with each hole. The front nine sits the quiet terrain of a meadow and some marshland. It’s not uninteresting golf—there’s plenty of subtle contour and strategic interest—but the full orchestra doesn’t kick in until the back nine. Nos. 10-14 play around a large hill, or what’s really a bunch of abrupt knolls and ledges piled on top of each other. After a return to the meadow on the 15th and 16th holes, the routing finishes with a stunning flourish, vaulting to the top of the tallest peak on 17 and tumbling back down on 18.

With each of these shifts in landscape, Ross’s architecture maintains a precise sense of scale. The built features are as small or big as they need to be in order to fit or enhance the topography. For instance, the diminutive mounds to the left of the first green lend some texture to an otherwise flat area, whereas the massive earthwork propping up the left side of the 11th green melds with the cascading ridges to the right. These are the details Ross always got right when he devoted years to a single project.

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I’d put Essex County Club in the same bucket as Old Town Club and Somerset Hills. All three are low-key clubs that have not hosted major championships and have no aspirations to do so. They are highly ranked and were designed by name-brand Golden Age architects but are not the highest-ranked examples of those architects’ work. They occupy excellent pieces of land that don’t quite have the majesty of properties like Cypress Point, Shinnecock Hills, or Royal County Down. But unlike many other darlings of the magazine rankings, Essex County, Old Town, and Somerset Hills have maximized their potential through smart, sensitive restoration and agronomy.

These clubs aren’t trying break into the Golf Digest top 10 or attract a U.S. Open. They’re just striving to be the best version of their 100-year-old selves. -GM

2 Eggs

(How We Rate Courses)

Hepner and Richardson’s vintage presentation of Essex County earns a full Egg. The second Egg comes from a combination of land and design, which are both outstanding but don’t quite make it to the elite-of-the-elite tier.

Additional Content

Broad Strokes and Fine Details: Essex County (article)

Course Tour

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