Montclair Golf Club (1893) today is the only 36 hole course among the five existing courses. The club was established in 1893 but was located in Montclair in the “Edwin Park” residential area and the current Edgemont Park. In 1899 the current location was estlabished with an 18 hole course designed by Tom Bendelow.

       In 1920, Donald Ross designed a 27 hole course to replace the original course and during that year playing privileges were given to the members at the Essex County Country Club courses. By 1928 work was started on the fourth nine designed by Charles Banks. Banks the same designer that had completed the work at the Essex County CC East and West courses the year before.

The Montclair Golf club is unique in that all four nine hole courses start just outside the clubhouse and there is the possibility of playing some 12 different combinations of 18 holes of golf. Montclair also has the reputation of having the most difficult greens to master with both the undulations and speed adding to the difficulty of coming home with a score to brag about.

      Their website has a much more detailed history and is worth exploration.

      With the passing of Mr. Raynor, his partner Charles Banks who had worked the Essex County CC and the fourth nine at Montclair is responsible for the construction of the course. The Rock Spring website refers to Mr. Banks as “steamshovel” Banks based on how he tooled the design of his greenside bunkers.

     Rock Spring Club occupies approximately 174-acres uniquely situated atop the first mountain. The clubhouse overlooks the five-acre, spring-fed Cable Lake, which adjoins the first and second holes of the golf course. The view to the East presents a panorama of the Manhattan skyline. The view to the West overlooks Cable Lake and the vista of second mountain. 

      The course made considerable improvements in play with an eye toward the new and improved golf technology in 2001. They also have an excellent website where photos of clubhouse and each hole are available for viewing.

Pins issued by the golf course and worn by caddies seen above in West Orange circa 1930s. These pins belonged to James Fagan Jr. WOHS Class of 1939. As a young man Fagan caddie at both these golf courses. (Joseph Fagan Collection)

Crestmont Country Club (1923) had a strange start with 13 holes of golf being built by August Sipple on part of his grandfathers farm. There is no explaination why only 13 holes since it was well established this was either a nine or eighteen hole game. At any rate it was sold in 1918 to Andrew and Agnes Force who retained the property until 1923 when it was sold again to the Newark Athletic Club.

      At this point the famous Donald J. Ross golf architect was brought in and he established his own 18 hole course leaving little of what preceded him and it was completed by 1924. An athletic field was also built for track and field events by the club and used for International Track and Field events in 1924 and Olympic Trials in 1926. The famous Jesse Owens was one of the qualifiers. The Athletic Club lost the facility to bankruptcy in 1932 and it found several more unsuccessful owners until it was taken over by some 248 of its members in 1955 and has remained in that form of ownership since.  

      Personally I used to caddy at this course each summer from 1957 through 1959 and was able to save almost a thousand dollars to buy my first car. The caddie master at the time was Billy Lynch and he was a character who lived on Johnson Rd. off Eagle Rock Ave. Lynch always made sure his drinking buddies from the local tavern in Plesantdale were the first to get out each day first but after the first 20 loops were assigned Billy took care of the kids that showed up every day. I began to think my name was “Hey You Blondie” over the three summers and it used to annoy me since after only a few weeks one of my best friends Bob Smith was being called Smitty. We both received the same amount of work but I doubt I was called by my correct name more than once a year.

      One of the neat things was that the course was closed on Mondays to regular play and while the greens keepers were doing repairs the caddies would be allowed to play the course for free. My mother took me down to Bambergers in Newark when they advertised a golf equipment sale and I was able to purchase a whole set of Spalding irons for $1.00 per club. My mothers cousin Tom MacInerney of Elm Street, West Orange gave me his old set of woods and a puter and my golf career started. Fortunately I never tried to make a living from it.

      So why with so many golf courses available why doesn’t anyone think of West Orange and golf at the same time. The reason is probably that all but the Francis A. Bryne course are for the most part and always have been private golf courses. The only other public course was the Mountain Ridge Course but that was sold off to “progress”. The good thing is that if they were not private, they would probably too have all disappeared to that ominous word “progress” too.  Because they were private, they had a membership of successful businessman and politicians who were able to keep their clubs alive through the good and bad of the economies.