Basking Ridge Country Club

Originally opened as Pennbrook Golf Club in 1926 with a course designed by Alexander Findlay, Basking Ridge Country Club occupies 257 acres in the rolling Somerset Hills of New Jersey. The par-71, 6,906-yard layout includes an extensive short-game facility and two practice putting greens. The club requires no initiation fee or food minimums.

Basking Ridge Country Club in Basking Ridge, New Jersey has a history that spans three distinct eras, beginning with its founding in 1926 as Pennbrook Golf Club and evolving through wartime closure, public operation, and private reinvention into its current identity. Alexander H. Findlay, a Scotsman who emigrated to the United States in the 1880s and became one of the country's most prolific golf course designers, laid out the original course in 1926 on the grounds of William Bancker's Willmary Farm. The property had previously served as the estate of U.S. Senator John Spooner.

Findlay's career produced more than 500 courses throughout the United States — often working alongside his brother — with his portfolio including clubs from Palm Beach to Lake Placid. When the club opened on July 2, 1926, its stated purpose was unusually democratic for a golf club of the era. According to owner William Bancker, the course was intended as a community facility, "open to those of modest means," with anyone able to play upon paying a reasonable charge and membership available but not required. The club operated through the 1930s but was forced to close in 1942 when wartime gas rationing — and the death of Bancker in 1940 — brought the facility's commercial viability to an end. Ownership had passed to Bancker's two sons on his death, but neither could sustain the operation under the wartime restrictions.

For the duration of World War II, the property reverted to agricultural use as a cow pasture and cornfield. Pennbrook was reopened in May 1953 by Edward V. Murray, who operated it as a public facility for more than two decades. The club remained public until November 1977, when Murray's nephew sold the property to a group of businessmen. The final transformation came in 1986, when the Mahan family purchased the club at public auction and converted it to a private membership operation.

They changed the name to Basking Ridge Country Club and invested substantially in upgrading the facility, adding bunkers, improving drainage, planting trees, and making numerous other improvements to bring the club in line with the standards expected of a private New Jersey club. Today the course plays par 71 across 6,906 yards from the Blue championship tees, with a USGA course rating of 74.1 and slope of 140. Multiple tee combinations run down to approximately 5,400 yards from the forward markers, and the property includes an extensive short-game facility and two practice putting greens.