By Hank Gola
The re-opening of the Upper Course at Baltusrol Golf Club in Springfield, N.J., highlights a number of course renovations around the Met Area in 2025. The highly in-demand Gil Hanse restored A.W. Tillinghast’s famed Lower Course during the pandemic before focusing on what many Baltusrol members consider their favorite, also designed by Tillinghast. While the Lower is more synonymous with major championships, Hanse considers the Upper to be on better topography with more striking holes, such as the par-5 eighth.
Matt Wirths, who served as club president and master plan committee chair when the work began, stressed that everything Hanse did recalled the spirit of the original designer.
The Upper, while remaining a shot maker’s course as opposed to the power required by the Lower, was becoming somewhat obsolete for the biggest tournaments. “That’s where Gil is a genius in his restoration aspect in that he can provide a challenging course not only for the top professionals and top amateurs but to our club members as well,” Wirths says. “We were at a crossroads in our existence … do we rest on our legacy, or do we invest in our legacy? And we believed it was time to invest in our legacy.”
Other clubs that will unveil updates this year:
Century Country Club, Harrison, N.Y.: The club brought back Keith Foster, who headed up its 2017 renovation, to add length and challenge to the course that will co-host U.S. Open Sectional Qualifying in 2026–2028 and host the Met Open in 2027. Foster shifted tee boxes slightly to the left on No. 2 to create more of a challenge while completely revamping the front of the seventh green along with the bunker complex. He also added considerable length to No. 8, historically a very short par 5, shifting the fairway to the left and rearranging the fairway bunker so that the angle is dramatically different. In addition, the tee boxes on 15 and 17 have been re-arranged, and the practice green completely rebuilt and enlarged.
Cherry Valley Club, Garden City, N.Y.: Architect Stephen Kay has completed work between holes 10 and 18, which run parallel to each other in opposite directions. He rebuilt bunkers and added several others from the original Devereux Emmett design that had been replaced by trees since cut down.
North Jersey Country Club, Wayne, N.J.: Now No. 10 on GOLF Magazine’s New Jersey state rankings, NJCC will debut the return of the 10th hole to a par 5 just as Walter Travis had designed it in 1923. Members subsequently thought it too hard and converted it to a par 4, but the contours of the original green remained and were used by architect Brian Schneider to recreate the putting surface. Schneider restored the front nine in 2022 and the back nine in 2024.
Weequahic Golf Course, Newark, N.J.: Just west of Newark Liberty International, this historic venue will reopen this summer with a completely new design by Stephen Kay, who also completed recent renovations at the two other Essex County Parks courses, Francis Byrne and Hendricks Field. Originally designed by Baltusrol pro George Lowe, Weequahic opened in 1914 as the first municipal golf course in New Jersey. Hal Purdy added nine holes to the original nine in 1969. “We are doing a very old-fashion quirky design,” Kay says. “Basically, we are building a new golf course – all new greens, tees, bunkers, and even shifted (the routing) to create some new holes to make it safer.”
Whippoorwill Club, Westchester County, N.Y.: Chris Cochran of Nicklaus Design will complete a master plan begun in 2022. Originally a Donald Ross nine-holer but mostly the work of Charles Banks, Whippoorwill had lost so much of its original character that Cochran told the club he knew of no Banks, Seth Raynor, or C.B. Macdonald course where the green edges were so far from the bunkers. Cochran replaced most of the bunkers, expanded greens to create new pin placements, simplified fairway lines, and added tees so that there are now five on every hole. He also removed every intrusive white pine, while adding church pews to the short par-5 third.