Linwood Country Club

About Linwood Country Club

Linwood is a private club, and one of the oldest in South Jersey. Herbert Strong, the British-born architect credited with the first island green, laid the course out on marshland off the back bays of Absecon Island, and from much of it you look across the water to the Atlantic City skyline. The clubhouse was put on a knoll on purpose so you could see most of the course from it.

What you play now is mostly the 1999 reconstruction by Tony Lepre and Rob Salad, which changed every hole. They added large waste bunkers with native grasses to sit against the marsh, lengthened the back tees and built four sets of tees. The club says the brief was to make 80 harder to break from the tips and 100 easier for the average player. It's a par 70 from the blue tees, per GAP. The same project finally gave the club a real range, which meant moving the ninth fairway, rebuilding the tenth and digging a pond. Before that, members hit balls across the fifth fairway.

The early years were rough. Prohibition and then the Depression put the club into receivership, and a try at running it as a public course failed. The clubhouse sat boarded up until 1944, after a group of 34 men met in December 1943 and bought it back for $23,500. Since December 2017 a group including the Dougherty family, who own Dock's Oyster House and the Knife and Fork Inn, has owned it, and the club's two restaurants are open to the public even though the golf isn't.

It's one of 30 courses Yoink watches in the South Jersey & the Shore area, and the closest alternative is McCullough's Emerald Golf Links, about 3 miles away — handy when your first choice is booked solid.

How to get a tee time at Linwood Country Club