At the end of a quiet, dead-end in New Jersey, down a road time forgot, lies arguably the greatest destination in golf: Pine Valley Golf Club – to many the single best golf course in the world.
As you reach the end of the road, to your right – on the other side of the old railway track which runs between Philadelphia and Atlantic City – you will spot a modest wooden hut, shrouded by scrub pines, which stands as the entrance to 184 acres of golf nirvana.
You won’t find a website for Pine Valley Golf Club, you won’t find social media channels – this place is an anomaly in golf. Ask anyone in the game to reel off the best golf courses in the world and you will hear them mention August National, Pebble Beach, St Andrews and Royal Portrush – all courses that we see the best players in the world visit with relative frequency, that we see commemorated and celebrated on television.
By contrast, Pine Valley remains a mystery and retains its mystique: unashamedly private, perpetually out of reach. You’re a member or an invited guest. You just can’t buy your way in. At any one time there are around 1,000 members of Pine Valley Golf Club, but you will likely find no more than 130 golfers on the course on any given day. This isn’t the kind of place you will be waiting to play shots or find yourself held up at par-3s. It’s wonderfully deserted. As it should be.
GEORGE CRUMP & PINE VALLEY GOLF CLUB
Pine Valley Golf Club is the brainchild of George Arthur Crump, a man who combined his two great passions in life on this prime patch of New Jersey real estate – the great outdoors and golf. Crump had grown up around money, his family were hoteliers in Philadelphia, and he had become a fixture at many of the great golf clubs of the region, where he was a member and familiar face. A trip to Europe in 1910 would shape the next stage of his life, where having been inspired by many of the incredible courses he played in the UK and Europe, he set his mind on creating a golf course at home that would transplant so much of what he had found back across the pond and create a golf course that would stand as a true test for the very best golfers in Philadelphia, New Jersey and beyond.
First, he had to find a piece of land, a canvas on which to create his masterpiece. No one quite knows the truth of how Crump found this 184-acre site – some say he spotted it from the train as he made his way to Atlantic City, along the Reading Railroad track which skirt the northern boundary of Pine Valley Golf Club, while others claim Crump knew the site from his childhood when he would go game hunting on the land with his father. Whatever the truth is, the land was peppered with pine and oak trees, with the soil a perfect blend of sandy and dense, while natural gatherings of water were spread throughout – it was ideal.
THE MAN WHO SHAPED PINE VALLEY
In 1912, Crump bought the land from a Mr Sumner Ireland, but it was his decision to recruit A.W. Tillinghast, now widely considered to be one of America’s greatest golf course architects, which really set Pine Valley Golf Club on course for the very top of the game.
The two worked tirelessly together, driven by a shared belief in the project and willing to spend months under canvas on the land, sharpening the layout under candlelight and finalising maps. Even the great Harry Colt, the man behind the great Sunningdale Golf Club in England, was consulted.
Construction on Pine Valley Golf Club began in earnest in 1913. By the end of 1914, 11 holes had been completed and the very first members were signed up and allowed to play. By 1917, only three more holes had been added – the project had begun to experience problems, so too the wider world. Crump’s overarching ambition for Pine Valley had outstripped his bank balance. Financial problems and repetitional – Crump died in January 1918, reportedly shooting himself at the family estate. Over the course of the next four years, his friends would go on to complete the 18 holes in his memory. It didn’t take long for Pine Valley Golf Club to start to attract attention. By the 1960s, Babe Ruth and Bing Crosby were regular visitors and as the years wore on, Presidents and sporting gods would follow. But Pine Valley has and will always be the real star of the show – this golf course simply can’t be upstaged.
PINE VALLEY GOLF CLUB MEMBERSHIP
The members here are fiercely protective of what they have here. Once you pass the wooden hut that acts as the guard house, everyone is treated equally. Is there a typical member of Pine Valley Golf Club? When you ask, you hear things such as ‘they just love golf’ or ‘we don’t want anyone who thinks there a smart-ass.’ Respect for the club is a quality that is mentioned too, but above all else there is a sense that the members’ first role is to protect and guard this golf course like it was their own. That extends to the staff at Pine Valley, who far from delivering a stuffy or snobby welcome go out of their way to make every single person feel as welcome as they would in their own home. Friendly, warm, kind and genuine are all words you hear when it comes to PV.
How do you become a member at Pine Valley Golf Club? The membership process is, as you would expect, shrouded in secrecy. But what is known is that members are not nominated and seconded as they might be elsewhere but invited to become members by the directorate or admissions committee, which has been in place for as long as anyone can remember and tasked with maintaining Crump’s ethos for the way the club should be overseen. The cost of membership at Pine Valley Golf Club? Again, that remains a closely guarded secret. Pine Valley is a place which shies away from attention and publicity – it simply doesn’t need it.
NEW CHAPTER FOR GOLF AT PINE VALLEY
For 108 years of its existence women were prevented from becoming members at Pine Valley Golf Club. That changed in 2021, when nine years after Augusta National, Pine Valley changed its laws to invite LPGA legend Annika Sorenstam, as well as two leading amateur golfers Meghan Stasi and Sarah Ingram to become members. And that has since led to Pine Valley stepping forward to host the Curtis Cup in 2034, having twice held the male equivalent, the Walker Cup in 1936 and 1985.
Pine Valley Golf Club has yet to stage a professional golf event and it may never do so, with Crump’s belief in and commitment to amateur golf a pillar of what made him who he was and this golf club what it is. Pine Valley is actually much more than just a golf club, it’s a borough in its own right.
Yes, the golf course and one square mile of pine forest featuring a little more than 20 houses, all of which are owned by members of Pine Valley Golf Club, as stipulated by borough law. When the time comes for residents to sell their homes, they must be sold back to the house and not on the open market. Pine Valley even has its own police force, albeit a very small one, and a mayor. It is a world apart in every sense of the phrase.
PINE VALLEY: WHAT THE GREAT NAMES SAY
How have the great names described Pine Valley Golf Club? The great Bobby Jones said of it, “I do remember every unusual hole, and I can tell you that I will remember every hole on that course.” The great professional turned architect Ben Crenshaw, added: “It’s been a great honour in my life to be there, study and absorb the place. I could study it for a lifetime.”
But to really get under the skin of Pine Valley, it pays to listen to those who you’ve never heard of. One member said, “variety certainly helps in life, but not when it comes to Pine Valley,” said “Once you get here, you stay here. For addicted golfers, it’s like going to Mecca.” Another added: “I’ve played over 750 courses in my life. It was one of the greatest days of my life.” Tom Yellin has been fortunate to play more than 100 rounds at Pine Valley as a guest, he said: “There is something virile about the experience of playing there that is profound. It makes you appreciate hard work, a sense of privilege, the outdoors, skill, luck.”
What more can you say? Pine Valley is not the same as anywhere else. It’s unashamedly different, unique, in fact. When you boil it all down, it’s all about the golf. And it begins with a dead end, which for most is where the journey ends.
At Pine Valley it’s the start of one of golf’s great adventures.
