Bowling Green Golf Club

About Bowling Green Golf Club

Albert Riggs was dairy farming this land when he and his brother Jerre, with George and June Salmon, hired Geoffrey Cornish to fit a course onto it. The Salmons' road construction firm out of Netcong built it, and the first nine opened on Memorial Day 1967. The Riggs family has held the land for more than 175 years and still runs the place, now in its third generation, and the old barn just beyond the 5th green is the maintenance building.

The front nine is the tight one: narrow fairways lined with tall red pines and oaks. The club's own history jokes about the sound of balls ping-ponging through those trees after a loose drive. The course sits in a valley below Mahlon Dickerson Park, and the Rockaway River's wetlands supply the water hazards. Dogwoods bloom white in spring, the club calls fall foliage its best feature, and the shade keeps it a few degrees cooler than the rest of the metro area in summer.

New back tees in the early 2000s stretched it to 6,863 yards. In 2006 Cornish himself, at 85, came back to oversee a restoration to his original plan, and by 2012 the club had renovated 56 bunkers and added more than 150 fairway drains. The 4th and 11th were reworked in 1983 when the Fairways townhomes went in, and you'll see townhouses on the 4th and houses along the 14th and 15th.

It's one of 2 courses in Oak Ridge on Yoink, and the closest alternative is Berkshire Valley Golf Course, about 1 mile away — handy when your first choice is booked solid.

How to get a tee time at Bowling Green Golf Club