Pound Ridge Golf Club is one of the newest courses to play on a New York golf vacation.
I just heard that Pound Ridge Golf Club (poundridgegolf.com), the new public Pete Dye creation located an hour north of New York City, is discounting its peak green fee by nearly 20 percent.
This brings it down, yes, down, to $195 before 3 pm.
Owned by Ken Wang, Jr., the brother of famous fashion designer Vera Wang, the course is Dye’s first in New York State and, mainly due to environmental constraints, it took more than a decade and $40 million to complete.
The question is…is the final product, which takes dead aim at the area’s many top-tier private courses (and heralded as one of the best of the year by nearly all the major golf magazines) really worth nearly $200 to play on a New York golf vacation?
That’s exactly the question the editors of Golf Odyssey answered in their recently published May 2009 issue, and supported it with an overall rating on their A, B, C, D, F scale.
Grading this course wasn’t easy (in more ways than one), and in their unbiased review, which, as always, was based on undercover inspections, the editors used words like “memorable,” and “eye popping” next to “quirkiness” and “bizarre.”
My favorite line: “Even the temporary clubhouse is better than facilities at many other courses.”
If you’re coming to or through New York City (and doesn’t everybody, sooner or later?) and you’re thinking about playing what is one of the most talked about courses this side of Bethpage Black on a golf vacation or business trip, this is the review to read.
Normally, it would be available only to subscribers, but you can get access to it simply by taking a no-risk, no-obligation free trial to Golf Odyssey. You’ll get immediate access to the May 2009 issue (which also includes reviews on Mesquite, Nevada; Sand Hollow Resort in Utah; and Wild Dunes Resort near Charleston, South Carolina) and limited-time access to the entire back issue archive, where you’ll find honest critiques and money-saving secrets for virtually any golf vacation destination you’re considering.
Did you know? Golf Vacation Insider and Golf Odyssey are the world’s only golf publications that do not accept any advertising from golf courses, resorts, or restaurants and regularly travel anonymously in order to provide you with expert, unbiased, and trusted advice.
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{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
There are some, er, bright spots (grin). I’m sure you heard that the American Society of Golf Course Architects got Golf Digest to change their course ratings definition of “conditioning.” Read this article: http://www.golfdigest.com/magazine/2008/05/environment_conditioning
Craig, yes they did, and I applaud them for that. I am NOT a “tree hugger”, but I see a lot of things that remind me of the great statement. “Mother Nature Bats Last”. In the Palm Springs area, because of the VERY aggressive overseeding that is done during the winter season (when people come there to play), there are now strains of rye grass that do NOT die when the ground and air heat up. They have adapted to the environment, and now many of the Superintendants are faced with how to eliminate those cool season grasses from their fairways during the summer months when the Bermuda is supposed to take over. Better to not overseed at all. We need to educate the public that a dormant bermuda fairway is NOT a bad thing. It is just a more natural thing. My home course (Dos Lagos) in Corona did NOT overseed this last winter and while the course didn’t look like much from the highway, it played just fine. You have to adapt and hit a little different kind of shot into a green, but the course was quite playable. We are a bunch of very spoiled golfers in this country, and the game, in my belief is the poorer for it. A great golf course with well maintained greens should play just as well and just as enjoyably from dormant bermuda as from bright green rye grass. We need to educate golfers to understand that a major portion of their greens fees go into things which make no real difference about how the course plays. Fred
It is nice to know in this economy that someone is ONLY charging $200.00 to play a round of golf. The course may be great, but COME ON…. What a comment on this grand game that has become so economically unreachable for so many. I make a great living, and could not DREAM of playing that golf course. I have seen only two golf courses in my life worth paying that much money for. Pebble Beach and Augusta National. Fred Brattain Certified Teaching Professional The Handicapped Golfer’s Learning Foundation http://www.HandicappedGolfer.com http://www.leverpowergolf.ws http://www.yourbrainongolf.com 530-400-4675 Corona, CA
I understand the “rule of thumb”, having been in the business side of the “biz” and hating it (grin). Part of what I was saying is that too much money is spent building courses that are too hard to maintain. Instead of making everything within 200 yards of the fairway bright green and over watered, we should take more of a note from the Scots (my ancestors (grin)) who have MARVELOUS golf courses that seldom need much water at all. Green fairways are great, but put the money into really good greens, put in drought resistant grasses on the fairways and when they go dormant, let them be. Mow the fairways and a collar of about 10 yards on either side of the fairway at about 2 inches and leave the rest of the land alone. Otherwise we are going to price the whole nation right out of existance. I played Pebble Beach for YEARS as a kid, and I remember when there were no cart paths, and no carts. The rough was NOT a pleasant place to be because it has never seen a mower. You could take a caddy or haul your own. That is what golf should be, and I am saying that from the perspective of someone who is 80% disabled, plays in $3500.00 worth of knee braces, and would take a young guy or gal as a caddy and walk any course where they would let me. I am not trying to sound like a curmudgeon (grin)… It’s just that I see the game getting worse not better. I would do another 30 minutes on that one (including the attitude of most PGA professionals on tour), but I will refrain unless invited to do so (grin). Fred Brattain Certified Teaching Professional Corona, CA 92882 http://www.handicappedgolfer.com http://www.yourbrainongolf.com http://www.leverpowergolf.ws
Thanks for your comment, Fred. If you go by the rule of thumb that a golf course has to charge $10 in green fees for every $1 million spent on land & construction, the green fee should be $400! Only in New York!
Fred, I like your attitude! What I would give to transport Pebble back to the state in which you describe it. Oddly, that’s the current state of Bethpage Black! (no cart paths, bring your own caddy or loop yourself, inexpensive, it is maintained pretty well)
As for Pound Ridge, Craig, to make the numbers work even $400 is probably not sufficient. I sure hope the Wang’s have this business set up as a separate entity amongst all the family interests because I can only see one end game with this project — bankruptcy. Time will tell.