Rockland Lake Golf Club – A Taste Of New York Golf Close Enough To The Big Apple.

It simply comes with job!

By that I mean the increasing practice of visiting golf courses in the vicinity of a tournament venue.

This week’s Barclays Championship was no different as I found myself venturing to the Rockland Lake State Park Golf Course located about around 20 minutes from this week’s Ridgewood Country Club host venue.

In fact, the course is just 25 miles north of New York City in the Hudson Valley.

Rockland Lake clubhouse. (Photo - www.golfbytourmiss.com)

Rockland Lake clubhouse. (Photo – www.golfbytourmiss.com)

Rockland Lake State Park boasts an 18-hole Championship golf course and an 18-hole Par 3 Executive course.

The Championship Course plays 6,864 yards from the blue tees, 6,3467 yards off the while and 5,663 yards from the ladies red tees.

The course was designed in 1969 by then 47-year old David W. Gordon, a former President of the American Society of Golf Course Architects.

Gordon also is the son of golf architect William F. Gordon.

David W Gordon became a partner in the Gordon firm in 1952 and was involved in all aspects of the business. He continued to maintain the practice after his father’s death in 1974, retiring from active work in the mid 1980’s.

And in partnership with his father and on his own, he designed hundreds of courses throughout the United States, primarily on the East Coast.

In addition to Rockland Lakes he designed the following Virginia courses: Ethelwood CC (Richmond, 1957); Warwick CC; and Williamsburg CC (1960). He was also responsible for a 1963 remodeling of Hermitage Country Club in Richmond, Virginia.

Rockland Lake - View off the 10th tee.  (Photo - www.golfbytourmiss.com)

Rockland Lake – View off the 10th tee. (Photo – www.golfbytourmiss.com)

My first impression of Rockland Park Championship course was this wonderful tree-line course offering s an undulating test of golf where you’re faced with hitting from tee down to fairway and then fairway up onto green.

However the beauty of this, and as I noticed in my short visit, is that at holes such as the fourth, eight, 10th and 16th you’re standing high up on a tee and enjoying a sense of command over the hole before hitting down to a fairway or to a green, as it the case at the par three 16th.

The Championship course plays to a par 72 boasting usual configuration of four par fives, 10 par fours and four par three.

The No. 1 index hole is theĀ 431-yard par four fourth hole while the No. 18 index hole is the 16th but with a huge clump of long reed-like bushes guarding some two-thirds of the green.

Hereunder is a selection of photographs – click on photographs to enlarge.



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