Baltusrol Golf Club: Lower Course

Baltusrol Golf Club's Lower Course is one of A.W. Tillinghast's crowning achievements, set in the shadow of Baltusrol Mountain in Springfield, New Jersey. With its bold bunkering, heroic par fives, and a championship pedigree that includes seven U.S. Opens, the Lower Course stands as one of America's most honored and recognizable tournament venues.

Baltusrol Golf Club takes its name from Baltus Roll, a farmer who worked the land at the base of what is now called Baltusrol Mountain in Springfield, New Jersey. In 1831, Roll was murdered at the age of sixty-one by two thieves who believed he had hidden a small treasure in his farmhouse. The crime and its grim notoriety gave the mountain and the surrounding area their name, and when Louis Keller, publisher of the New York Social Register, purchased the property in the 1890s and announced on October 19, 1895, that the Baltusrol Golf Club would open, he kept the name. The original nine-hole course, designed by George Hunter, opened that year and was expanded to eighteen holes in 1898. From the beginning, Keller's ambition was to create a golf club befitting the city it served, positioned close enough to New York to draw the nation's most accomplished players and administrators. The club's architectural transformation came when Keller hired A.W. Tillinghast, who would become one of the towering figures of American golf course design. Tillinghast was asked to build a second eighteen-hole course to complement the existing Old Course, but after studying the property, he made a bold recommendation: demolish the Old Course entirely and let him design two new layouts from scratch. The club agreed, and construction of the Upper and Lower courses commenced in 1918. Both opened for play in June 1922, making them among the first contiguous thirty-six-hole designs built in America. Tillinghast designed them as "dual courses" that were to be "equally sought after as a matter of preference," and for over a century they have fulfilled that vision, each offering a distinct character while sharing the same rolling glacial terrain at the base of the First Watchung Mountain. The Lower Course has historically commanded greater attention as the club's primary championship layout. It occupies the lower-lying ground, spread across rolling parkland shaped by terminal moraine deposits from the last glaciation approximately eighteen thousand years ago.

The terrain produces dramatic elevation changes and creates natural amphitheaters for spectators, making it a superb venue for championship golf. The Upper Course runs along the ridgeline of Baltusrol Mountain, with the ninth and thirteenth holes incorporating ponds into their designs. The Upper measures 6,975 yards with a par of 72 and has hosted its own share of significant championships, including the 1936 U.S. Open and a U.S. Women's Open. Baltusrol's championship history is unmatched by all but a handful of American clubs. The club has hosted eighteen major championships across its existence. The U.S. Open has been played at Baltusrol seven times: in 1903, won by Willie Anderson in what was his second of four career Open titles; in 1915, claimed by Jerome Travers, who became only the second amateur after Francis Ouimet to win the national championship; in 1936, when Tony Manero shocked the field with a closing 67 to shatter the scoring record; in 1954, won by Ed Furgol; in 1967 and 1980, both captured by Jack Nicklaus on the Lower Course; and in 1993, claimed by Lee Janzen. The 1954 U.S. Open brought a significant architectural chapter when the USGA hired Robert Trent Jones Sr. to toughen the Lower Course ahead of the championship. Advances in equipment had allowed players to overpower Tillinghast's original defenses, and Jones was tasked with restoring the course's championship bite. His most notable modification was to the par-three fourth hole, where he lengthened the hole, expanded the tee, and built a back ledge on the putting green, creating a shot played entirely over a pond to a large but well-defended putting surface.

Club members protested that the redesigned hole was unfair. Jones responded by arranging to play the hole in front of an audience alongside the club professional, Johnny Farrell, and two members. Jones stepped to the tee, struck a four-iron, and watched his ball land on the green and roll into the cup for a hole-in-one. Turning to the assembled gallery, he delivered one of golf's most famous lines: "Gentlemen, the hole is fair. Eminently fair." The 1967 U.S. Open produced perhaps the single most iconic shot in the championship's history at Baltusrol. Jack Nicklaus, playing the seventy-second hole of the tournament on the Lower Course, faced an uphill approach of approximately 238 yards. He struck a one-iron that flew the green and settled close enough for him to convert the birdie putt from twenty-two feet, completing a final-round 65 and establishing a new U.S. Open scoring record of 275. He finished four strokes ahead of Arnold Palmer. Nicklaus returned to Baltusrol's Lower Course in 1980 and won again, this time with a record-tying 272, demonstrating the venue's capacity to reward sustained brilliance from the game's greatest player. In 1985, Baltusrol became the first club to have hosted both the U.S. Open and the U.S. Women's Open on two different courses. The PGA Championship has also found a home at Baltusrol. In 2005, Phil Mickelson won on the Lower Course with a performance defined by one unforgettable shot: a flop from deep rough to within two feet of the cup on the seventy-second hole, securing a one-shot victory over Steve Elkington and Thomas Bjorn. The 2016 PGA Championship returned to the Lower Course, where Jimmy Walker claimed his first major title, finishing one stroke ahead of defending champion Jason Day after a bogey-free final round. In 2014, Baltusrol was designated a National Historic Landmark, a recognition of its importance to Tillinghast's career and to the broader history of American golf course architecture. The designation acknowledged both the Upper and Lower courses as significant examples of early twentieth-century design. The most recent architectural chapter began when Gil Hanse was engaged to restore both courses. The Lower Course renovation was completed in 2021, with the course reopening in May. Hanse's approach focused on reclaiming Tillinghast's original design intent: returning greens to their original size and scale, recapturing lost bunkers, adding new tees, widening and reshaping fairways, and removing trees that had encroached on the playing corridors. On the seventeenth hole, the celebrated "Sahara" bunkering complex was moved forty yards down the fairway to put it more directly in play for accomplished golfers while creating a clearer landing area for members. On the eighteenth, the entire fairway was raised to bring it even with the guarding pond, improving the hole's flow, while right-side fairway and greenside bunkers were removed. Hanse also undertook a restoration of the Upper Course, returning it to Tillinghast's original vision. Baltusrol Golf Club endures as a storied venue in American golf, a place where Tillinghast's architecture has stood the test of a century and where the echoes of Nicklaus, Mickelson, and generations of champions still resonate across the rolling glacial ground at the foot of the mountain that bears a murdered farmer's name.