Scotland Run Golf Club

When thinking of prime golf courses, the state of New Jersey isn't usually heard in the same breath as Scotland. However, in southern New Jersey, in terrain uncommon to the region, lies Scotland Run Golf Club. The golf course impressively combines links and woodlands with holes through abandoned quarry pits.

Early Scottish settlers named a creek in the area Scotland Run, when they realized how much that particular landscape looked just like home. Today, the creek forms the northern boundary of the club--designed by Stephen Kay--which only opened in 1999. The eighteen-hole top-rated public course begins as a kind of challenge, with trees on three sides. By the second hole, however, the golfer is faced with a huge bunker that cuts the green in two. (The two halves are forty yards apart.) After that, the enormous surprises and intriguing difficulties just keep coming.

The holes on the course present many different hazards:

In addition to trees, water hazards abound--some 10 acres of them.
The sand quarry awaits after the front nine.
Bunkers may have vertical railroad ties or sod walls.
Anyone who relishes the challenge of left and right doglegs will encounter them here.
Wasteland was not forgotten in the design.
Cliff walls loom, where cliff walls are not supposed to be.

From wooded areas to wetlands, Scotland Run requires a thinking golfer. The golf club frustrates many players, while exciting them at the same time. In part, this is because the course becomes more difficult to play with each hole. In addition to the physical demands, what is the psychological impact of seeing a bunker that has what seems to be a moat, in front of a wall that defies climbing? What tortures lie at the bottom of that flight of steps you may have to trot down, into the sand quarry?

Golfers remember Scotland Run, and they either come back again and again, or want to return. The course is still young, but the memories will probably last a lifetime. An added bonus for a first-time visitor to Scotland Run is that it has a 15-acre practice facility. There, golfers can adjust their game before they tackle the real thing. Last but not least, many weddings take place at Scotland Run Golf Club.