Every Hole at Pine Valley Golf Club | Golf Digest

In 2017, Golf Digest gave golfers an exclusive first look into America’s No. 1 ranked golf course, Pine Valley Golf Club. In 2024, we return for an even more detailed look into one of the games most unique and original designs. Jerry Tarde narrates this spectacular hole-by-hole flyover of Pine Valley Golf Club in Pine Valley, New Jersey.

Script and Narration: Jerry Tarde
Cinematography: Carlos Amoedo
Editor: Nicholas Grieves
Production Manager: Kimberly Davis
Executive Producer: Christian Iooss

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You know you’re nearing Pine Valley it’s been said when over the hum of synthetic tires you hear wailing and Lamentations on the Wind an agonized chus that grows in intensity the number one golf course in America as ranked by Golf Digest may be the toughest course in all the world

But first you have to find it before GPS before navigation systems even the closest gas stations had no idea how to get there it’s somewhere in Southwest New Jersey 30 minutes from Philadelphia get off the interstate and head to the clementin amusement park then listen for the cries those train tracks on your

Right are reminiscent of how George Crump the founder and amateur architect discovered this prehistoric terrain on the reading railroad to Atlantic City it was once the head quarters of the Lenny lenpy Native Americans and a millennial before that geologists believe it was the ocean floor as Herbert Warren wind

Wrote it has the characteristics of good lyx land replete with abrupt ridges sudden dips and Swirls and a general anxiety no course quite like it has been built since and no course is as demanding of every shot even today Trump never lived to see it finished it remains his

Monument this is every hole at Pine Valley the first hole immediately says let’s see what you can do a classic risk reward off the te over a hazard to a bending Fairway where sand reaches out to grab a weak fade there’s excitement just walking down the Fairway the approach shot must be precise left right or long

And you may be happy to make a double Boogie when extra whole playoffs come here they don’t go any further that’s the way Crump envisioned it the second is the longest most treacherous 368 yards in Golf do you play it or take a picture of it is the

Common refrain just make sure you hit the Fairway off the te 32 yd wide but the eye of a needle bunkers rigged like a herring bone run up both sides to a rising Hill originally the green was guarded by a vertical slope of white sand now there’s a lunar Escape of sand

Pits you can only see the top of the flag stick the green is even more perilous a Miss shot is a death sentence as the members say welcome to Pine Valley the par 3s here have been called the best set of short holes in the world

You need a different Club in your hand on every one here’s the third 198 yd over the gnarliest topography to a skull-shaped green leaning sharply to the left J sigle W seven putted it in the Crump cup four is the longest par on the course at 54 yards half of it a blind

Carry off the te the view from the top of the hill is majestic cross bunkers are in play for a long hitter but more often they capture a poor second shot the green runs away from you keep in mind the clubhouse is in play Carlton Forester entered the lore of Pine Valley

When he played a shot off the roof in the 2012 Crump cup but Pine Valley most famous feat was also accomplished here by the amateur jwood plat he birdied the first holded a six iron for a two at the second then made an ace at the third

After huling a 30t putt for a birdie at the fourth he repaired to the bar to steady his nerves and did not emerge to finish the round Philadelphia’s caddy scholarships are named for Him every t-shot presents A new challenge and the most difficult might be at number five the Frankenstein monster of par 3s Jean ller made a newspaper 7even on this hole in a match against Byron Nelson for the first episode of Shell’s Wonderful World of Golf which comes as no surprise to any

Golfer who misses it right the complex of bunkers set into the hill left of the green is where many players hit it today from there they scrape it over into ller territory before picking it up for their own newspaper 7 Harry Colt is responsible for this hole he spent only

2 weeks on the property helping Crump root the course next to Sunningdale the fifth at Pine Valley may be his most lasting tribute the championship te on number six restores the full value of its heroic Cape design on most of the holes just a pretty good shot is of no use at

All Crump said he wanted a course that would test the best players to their limit and make them Better the seventh is the longest hole on the course 636 yard from the back with hell’s half acre the Sandy waist at its midpoint filled not just with sand but clumps of scrub Oak and Scotch broom Pine bushes and mountain laurel you might say there are no bunkers at Pine

Valley Pine Valley is one big Hazard with occasional patches of grass there also are no rakes at Pine Valley golfers are asked to smooth their deepest Footprints but otherwise the sand is left to be tended by wind and rain it’s right about about now you notice the water tower decorated as a

Dutch inspired windmill Legend is that a member once suggested it to Club President John Arthur Brown who sent him the bill for its construction today it doubles as a halfway house for Beverages and snacks and handfuls of ibuprofen Tom Watson’s favorite hole is the eighth stretching only to 326 ydd

With two greens the one on the left is original the right was added in 1986 to take stress off the other and it’s nobody’s favorite your wedge approach side Hill downhill off a thin lie to an uphill spit of green with a false front is wicked often overlooked are the

Greens massive football fields on some postage stamps on others frozen waves rumpled blankets elephant burial grounds impossible to read without advice from the club’s famously quirky caddies maybe the best caddy core in the world the the aim of a putt may be 90° from a straight line to the hole green speeds reach

Scary fast at tournament time as quick as 12 to 13 on the stim meter the 458 yard ninth has two greens as well again the left came first a stand of trees were recently removed from behind creating an Infinity green when approached From Below as herb win said it’s the most dazzling succession

Of second shots available on any course recent Tom Fazio changes throughout the course have involved tree removal opening up the visuals and exposing more sand te’s were moved back hard holes got harder George crump’s Vision Ured then there’s the hole we’ve been waiting for the short tth only 142 yards from the middle t a bowl of Briar’s ice cream Bob Hope once played the front nine in 43 then took an 11 on the 10th wait what is that darkened aperture short right it’s the bottomless pit

Known inelegantly throughout the golfing world as the devil’s no golfer has ever walked past it without stopping to stare into its gravitational pole it said Pine Valley is the only course in the world with 18 great holes not an indifferent one among them upon playing the course only once you can

Remember every hole distinctly each is a separate masterpiece like the zigzag 11th here the Fairway looks 60 yards wide but the target is the smallest triangle framed apart from all the others many consider it their favorite hole at the 1936 Walker cup the great Charlie Yates composed the parody of Joyce kill

Elmer’s poem trees I think that I shall never see a course as lovely as Pine Valley with trees and sand traps everywhere and divots flying through the air a course laid out for fools like me but only God can make a Three the 12th is a drive and a pitch 358 Ys but visually the most intimidating hole on the course when Fazio renovated it he kept the footprint of the Fairway and green exactly the same but created the fifth circle of hell on the left with a cacaphony of

Sandy Caverns deep enough for human exploration those who criticize the new look don’t realize it’s exactly what Crump would have done if only he had Tom’s bulldozers keep it right off the tea and the course might yield its easiest birdie Pine Valley Blends all three schools of golf design heroic penal and

Strategic over the whole core course often on a single hole for rugged Grandeur 13 may be the best of the best 51 Yards First to a perched landing area on the right then a long sweeping second with Death Or Glory at hand its Pebble beaches eighth hole without the Pacific

Ocean 14 was originally conceived as a short par 4 but it’s now the final Par 3 from a complex of elevated te’s 210 yard from all the way back it plays downhill over a beach bunker to an island green the official record for most Strokes on

A hole at Pine Valley was once held by John Brooks a Washington attorney who played it in 46 blows like most records made to be broken when you walk off the green cover your head there’s invariably a call of four as incoming mortars bomb the 15th T from

Behind the long long wooden bridge there is a famous One Legend has it that Bobby Jones in 1930 came to Pine Valley to relax and get out of a slump ahead of the final leg of the Grand Slam at Maran his poor play continued with three x’s

On the early holes and Jones cursed the ducks on the pond here before hitting his drive at 15 when he set foot off the bridge he had an epiphany as if an anvil had been lifted from his shoulders he said he felt a natural calm

The slump was over and Jones went on to win the amateur championship and golf’s only Grand Slam this is known as the miracle of the Bridge it might have been 15 that burner Darwin had in mind when he called Pine Valley an examination in Gulf 65 yards every step uphill and sloping left to right to a narrowing Target with a false front for some of us this par five is actually a par seven requiring four full

Shots and three putts make sure you carry your approach to the middle of the green and good luck from there some say this clutch of holes 134 15 is Pine Valley’s Amen Corner others think all 18 holes invoke The Lord’s Prayer are they unfair at times maybe so but isn’t that

The ultimate test can a player hit a good shot only to be crushed by a horrific result then still find it within himself or herself to rise to the occasion on the next one that’s the essence of Pine Valley where to aim your t-shot on 16

Decides your fate 475 from the back the view is breathtaking down to the lake dug out by Crump when he removed 22,000 trees from the whole property you never have a flat lie why the Fairway is divided by a swath of of rough is a mystery sand catches a pulled second but

Push it a sco and your ball slides maddeningly into the water the round nears the end with a delicate dog leg right the 17th which at one time had two Fairways kind of a sister hole to the second a new T stretches it to 414 yards the approach

Is uphill over a crater of scrubland Then a brood of a finish arguably the finest 18th hole anywhere a 483 yd wonder of the world the t-shot is elevated with a long carry the second is over sand and rough and water and sand again upward to the Home Green where golfers blooded and bowed do their caps

And shake hands the round is done a libation awaits Pine Valley is criticized on the grounds that the punishment for an error is out of proportion to the degree of the error said John Arthur Brown Club president for 50 years the thrill of Pine Valley is the constant battle the golfer wages with the course he can’t let up for a

Moment or he sunk we like it that way he said Pine Valley will not be for the novice or the timid player said tilling Hast a member George C Thomas said Pine Valley’s charm is the thrill of surmounting its varied hardships countered Bernard Darwin the right of Eternal punishment should be reserved

For a higher authority before Pine Valley was even finished Donald Ross and CB McDonald declared it the greatest golf course in America a century later they’re still right I think there’s a casual nobility to the place owed in part to its scale 600 plus acres and its friendly membership now including women

And the passion of its staff if 18 holes Aren’t Enough the club has a 10-hole short course and the most hallowed practice range in captivity Savor the experience you will never forget it or any of its holes all the days of your Life