Plainfield Country Club, NJ, USA

9th hole, 365 yards; A wonderful close to the front side, the 9th traverses up the slope that the 1st hole tumbles down. Depending on exactly where one places his drive, the approach to the green can be blind and the golfer will have to select a particular mark on the clubhouse directly behind the green as his aiming guide. A pity more American courses don't follow the U.K. lead and have holes that end directly beneath the clubhouse.

The cozy setting of the 9th green can attract many onlookers.

10th hole, 360 yards; Perfectly capturing the rolling topography of the site, the blind drive is over a ridge to a fairway some 30 feet below the tee. The angle of the steeply pitched green is toward the outside of the dogleg and as such, the golfer is better served by taking plenty of club off the tee. A tee ball of some 240 yards gives the golfer the best view of the green while the 'safer', more conservative tee ball of only 200 yards leaves the golfer with a poor angle, as well as a blind shot, into the green. Few modern architects would have left the topography in its untouched state for fear of the howls of protest about the unfairness of blind shots.

The conservative play off the 10th tee leaves the golfer with a blind approach shot over this ridge.

11th hole, 145 yards; A simple little hole that plays from a tee that was perfectly benched into the hillside across a valley to a beautifully draped green on a ridge. Long is dead while short means that the golfer is likely to find himself in one of the deepest bunkers on the course. The green is thus a hit it or else proposition, which is reasonable given the hole's modest length.

The view from the 11th tee is more charming than terrifying...until you miss the green!

12th hole, 585 yards; Originally a par four and a par three, Ross combined them into a three shot hole in the 1930s when the Club acquired additional land for the construction of new holes (today's 13-15). By doing so, he made excellent use of a drainage ditch which breaks into the fairway from the right at the 135 yard mark and bisects the fairway until it hugs the green's left side. Given a normal green, the golfer would rarely think of crossing the drainage ditch with his 2nd shot as the reward wouldn't be worth the risk. However, a spine in the middle of the green runs from front to back and if the day's hole location is left middle or front, the optimal angle into such hole locations is from the right hand portion of the fairway. The golfer needs to note the 12th's hole location as he plays the nearby 3rd hole.

The drainage ditch coupled with the spine in the green creates interesting decisions for the golfer.

There will be further incentive for the golfer to cross the stream on his 2nd shot once Hanse
recaptures the front left portion of the 12th green.

The drainage ditch hugs the left side of the 12th green. The famous hogback nature of
the green is obscured by the shadows on the green.

16th hole, 555 yards; When combined with the 12th, these two would surely rival the two three shotters on the second nine at Pinehurst No. 2 as the finest pair of par fives found on any Ross side. Hanse is restoring the alternate route to the left of the Sahara like bunker complex that falls at the 350 yard mark from the tee.

Ross placed these cross bunkers on the ridge that bisects the 16th fairway 200 yards from the green.
Such bunkers pressure the golfer to execute on both his 1st and 2nd shots,
a trait found wanting with many modern three shotters.

An attractive L shaped bunker wraps around the right and back of the 16th green.

17th & 18th holes, 425 and 385 yards respectively; With only a few exceptions like the West Courses at both Royal Melbourne and Winged Foot, the authors can think of few courses that end with two doglegs in the opposite direction. The horizon greens on each hole make depth perception particularly tricky.

The 17th bends sharply to the right around this cluster of bunkers on the inside of the dogleg while...

the 18th doglegs to the left, making the golfer contend with this diagonal
array of bunkers for his approach.

As good as Plainfield may sound from the above, several peculiarities have attracted criticism in the past. In particular, the stretch of 13-15 has never quite fit in with the rest of the holes. The story of these three holes is somewhat convoluted but goes like this: Ross's original 1921 routing of the course was from the par 4/par 3 that is now the 12th hole to today's 16th hole. The original 17th and 18th holes approximately occupied the land of today's driving range. Appreciating the need for a practice area, the Club acquired the land in the 1930s which the 13th-15th now sit on and Donald Ross himself routed these three holes. A stream as opposed to two ponds was the dominate feature on holes 13 and 14 but the stream was later dammed for irrigation purposes. The actual construction of the 13th-15th holes was left to the golf professional Marty O'Laughlin who was a friend of Ross's and he did a responsible job. Nonetheless, the finishing touches of these holes were slightly out of character with the rest of the course. Thus, the Club eventually hired Geoffrey Cornish to 'improve' them in the 1960s. Unfortunately, they became less like the other 15 holes as Cornish replaced Ross's mounding with bunkers on the left of the 13th and 15th fairways as well as replacing the mounds that were left of the 14th green with another sand faced bunker. Hanse's Master Plan successfully addresses these issues and once Cornish's sand faced bunkers are removed and Ross's mounds restored, these three holes should better meld with the rest of the course.

In addition, two other ponds were created by a long standing Green Keeper on the inside of the doglegs on both the 10th and 18th holes due to the ground's marshy nature. While built for practical reasons, such ponds are completely out of character on a Ross course. Hopefully, the Club will adopt Hanse's plan to restore Ross's original drainage ditch on 10th hole and to push the other collection area on the 18th further away from play.

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