Review: Hidden Creek Golf Club (Part 2)

It's time to check out the back nine at Hidden Creek, go here to see the front.

The tenth hole is where Hidden Creek starts to show some real difficulty. Despite being a par 35, compared with 36 on the front, the back nine is slightly longer, and par 4s like the tenth are a good reason for that. At nearly 450 yards, it's the longest par 4 on the course (though not by much), and it plays slightly uphill and into the wind. The fairway's a bit narrower than anything on the front nine, and it's pinched between bunkers and trees. Most golfers will have a pretty long iron into the semiblind green, which is long, narrow, and falls away from front to back. At least there's no sand in the immediate vicinity of the green, so that's something at least.

The tenth hole.

Approaching the tenth green.

The tenth green.

The eleventh hole is a tiny little par 3 at only 120 yards, though it does play significantly uphill. There are two bunkers left and in front, and two tiny pot bunkers to the right of the green, which is as small as the hole is and features quite a bit of right to left slope. It's not a tough hole, clearly, but don't take it for granted, because if you miss the green to the right it becomes very difficult to get up and down. It's not my favorite hole at Hidden Creek, but it's pretty close to being as good as the fourth, and I wouldn't be surprised if many prefer this hole. Short par 3s are almost always favorites.

The eleventh hole.

The twelfth hole is another long par 4 at 440 yards. The drive isn't especially difficult, though if you're an especially long hitter a cluster of bunkers does narrow the fairway significantly at around 300 yards. Most people aren't that long, so using driver should be fine. It's beneficial to favor the right side, flirting with the tree line, so you can have a clearer view of the green on the second. The green is decently sized and easier to hit than the tenth, but there are several bunkers scattered around which means inaccurate approaches are more punished. A nice draw aimed at the right side of the green will take the slope down and leave a relatively easy birdie putt.

The twelfth hole.

Approaching the twelfth green.

The twelfth green.

The thirteenth hole is a mid-length par 4 with many bunkers in play on the tee shot, and not just where a driver would end up. A long iron, a fairway wood, driver, there's no real place where you can safely play and not have a bunker threaten your shot. You could go out to the left with an iron, but then you'll have a mid iron into a par 4 that's only 380 yards, and that's not much fun. I was cautious off of the tee and had a 6 iron left; if I were to play here again I'd just use a driver, there's more space at that range then it looks. The green is ever so slightly elevated and sort of lumpy, making both putts and chips from around it tricky.

The thirteenth hole.

Approaching the thirteenth green.

The thirteenth green.

The fourteenth hole is the final par 3 at Hidden Creek, and while it's 65 yards longer than the eleventh (and it's 235 yards from the tips), I honestly think this hole is easier. The green is pretty big and it's open in front, with the bunkers being long and long right. The green does fall away at the back, so that's something to be mindful of; however, since the best shot is a draw that takes the right to left backboard down toward the hole, there's no need to get aggressive and risk bounding over.

The fourteenth hole.

The fourteenth green.

The fifteenth hole is a mid-length par 4 that doglegs significantly from right to left at a point where it's not the best idea to use a driver, since you'll run out of fairway quite quickly unless you can hit the big draw. Also, bunkers narrow the fairway up where a driver would end up, so there's really no valid reward for doing so. You just don't get enough out of it. The second shot will be a short or mid iron up the hill slightly to a shallow green which slopes from left to right that's almost completely open.

The fifteenth hole.

Approaching the fifteenth green. Those bunkers don't come close to the green.

The fifteenth green.

The sixteenth hole is the third par 4 on the back over 440 yards, and the drive here is the crucial part. Simply put, there's not a massive amount of space, and the fairway narrows significantly where a driver would end up. Of course, if you use a 3 wood, you'll have a very long second shot, so it's up to you which you'd rather have. For that second shot, there are bunkers front left and front right, with the right bunker being especially big and tough to escape from, and those bunkers obscure some of the green, making it look smaller than it actually is. Of the tenth, twelfth, and sixteenth, I'd say this is the toughest, but not by a large amount, and they're all pretty difficult but not tremendously so.

The sixteenth hole.

Approaching the sixteenth green.

The sixteenth green.

The seventeenth hole is a fairly short par 5, coming in at just under 500 yards, but it plays a bit longer thanks to bunkers that cut in from the left (and right, this hole is probably the most heavily bunkered at Hidden Creek), narrowing the fairway where you might want to hit a driver. Normally I don't like it when you can't hit driver on a par 5, but the hole is short enough that you can still go for it in two after hitting a 3 wood from the tee. If you are going for it, you may be tempted to bail out a bit right to avoid a nasty bunker left, but that would be a mistake. There's a bunker right that you can't see, and the green slopes from right to left, making recovery from the right very difficult. That goes double for people like me who struggle with the short game. This is an easy hole, but you can still easily turn a birdie into a bogey if you miss in the wrong place.

The seventeenth hole.

Approaching the seventeenth green.

The seventeenth green.

The eighteenth hole is 385 yards and is an appropriate closing hole for Hidden Creek. It's not a difficult course, and a tough finisher wouldn't be right. However, it's also not a pushover. I actually like this hole quite a bit because it's one of the few holes here with significant elevation change, and there's a good chance you'll end up with a downhill/sidehill lie if you use a driver and go past the central fairway plateau, and that's something Hidden Creek doesn't have too much of. The fairway is pretty wide, but the green is small, sloped significantly from back to front, and closely guarded by a couple of bunkers. You need two good shots to make a birdie, but its a lot easier to hit a good second shot when you have a wedge or short iron in your hands, and I like that the course ends with a hole like this.

The eighteenth hole.

The eighteenth green.

Naturally, Hidden Creek is an excellent golf course. I would expect nothing less from Coore and Crenshaw, who have a stellar reputation as golf course architects. There is so much subtlety to the design that I'm sure I'm missing, having only played the course once, and there's a good chance I'd appreciate it more if I were to play it multiple times. The craftmanship on display is incredible, and the maintenance is beyond anything I've seen. Private courses really do have the edge in that regard, and while maintenance isn't everything, it is something.

Having said that, Hidden Creek is not my favorite course, and I do think it has some weaknesses. For one thing, I think there is such a thing as too subtle. Many of the holes here lack a sense of individual identity, I struggled to remember some of the holes here even just a few hours after finishing up the round. While the course isn't flat, the hills are gently rolling and not particularly distinctive, so that doesn't help either. The overall quality and design of the holes was obviously very solid, but there weren't any real standouts. I really liked the fourth, but I'm not even sure it's the best Redan I've played. The most distinctive feature was the former quarry on the third, but it was pretty easy to avoid.

In a similar vein, I also felt that Hidden Creek lacked a sense of humor. From start to finish, the course is rather serious, and there isn't much in the way of quirk or goofiness. There are flashes, like the quarry and the mounds in the eighth green, but there were no real risks in my opinion. Hidden Creek played it safe, and while you can make a very, very good golf course by doing it like that, it won't quite reach greatness. So that leaves Hidden Creek as an extremely good course bordering on greatness, but never quite reaching it. I hate leaving the last review of 2021 sounding disappointed, and like I said, I really like Hidden Creek, but when it comes to golf courses of this quality, I have to judge with a more critical eye. 

The question now is: Will Hidden Creek be my favorite course of 2021? Come back next week for my yearly roundup to find out.

Review: Hidden Creek Golf Club (Part 1)

I've been reviewing golf courses for almost 5 years now, and while I'm not sure of the exact number, I've gone through at least 50 courses. Now though, we have a first. Multiple, in fact, but one is more significant than the others. Hidden Creek Golf Club, located just outside Atlantic City, is a private club. I feel a bit weird reviewing it, considering I'm very much a supporter of all the good things public golf has to offer, but the truth of the matter is that the vast majority of the truly great golf courses in the United States are private. If you want to play the best of what American golf has to offer, you need connections. 

However, there are levels of privacy in this world, and Hidden Creek is not the most exclusive course in the world. It's part of the Dormie Network, a high-end membership organization that includes six courses around the country. As far as I understand, so long as you've got the money, anyone can join, so there's no waiting list, no need to know anyone already inside the club, it's almost more like a very fancy series of golf resorts. So, thanks to my brother who recently got a job at a private club in the Albany area, we were able to get a tee time during our vacation.

Hidden Creek is also significant for me since this is the first golf course I've played that was designed by Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw, quite possibly the most important golf course architects of the past 30 years. Among other courses, they did Sand Hills, the course that kick-started the minimalist movement in golf course design. Hidden Creek is laid out over sandy, gently rolling terrain in the woods of New Jersey, so while it wasn't quite blessed with the advantageous topography of their most famous work, they had a wonderfully isolated piece of property to lay out a course reminiscent of the heathland courses of England. So, let's find out how Hidden Creek, the first private course I've played in a very long time, compares with the best public courses that I've played. 

As with many golf courses, the first hole at Hidden Creek is a mid-length par 4, playing a bit under 400 yards (if you're using the back rather than championship tees like we were) to a wide-open fairway. So if you've got some first tee jitters, be assured that there's a ton of space out there. That fescue surrounding the fairway is thin, much thinner than it looks, and it's simple enough to find your golf ball and play out of it. That said, you're better off hitting down the left side, as the green is protected by a bunker front right. The green isn't flat, by any means, but it's nothing extreme, and in fact I found Hidden Creek's greens to be deceivingly flat in general.

The first hole.

The first green.

The second hole is 365 yards, and if you choose to use driver, the landing area is pretty tight, as the fairway narrows significantly from its widest point past 250 yards or so, and there are quite a few fairway bunkers scattered around to catch even slightly wayward drives. That said, if you lay up in the widest point of the fairway, there's a central bunker in play that I'm sure sees its fair share of usage. I kind of like that there's no obviously right or wrong play off of the tee , it gives you the freedom to do with this hole as you want. If you do lay back, the green looks pretty small, but there's quite a bit of space once you get past the bunkers and little hills surrounding the fairway. 

The second hole.

Approaching the second green.

The second green.

The third hole is just over 500 yards and is quite a handful. You have a couple options off of the tee, go left where its safer but have a long second where you're potentially blocked out by trees, or head out more to the right, challenging the bunkers and giving you a decent chance to go for the green in two. That's not the challenging part. The difficult part of the the hole is the massive waste bunker right and in front of the green, made from a former quarry. It is not a place you want to end up, so if you're not completely confident that you can carry it, I would recommend laying up out to the left (especially when it plays into the wind like it did for us). That leaves a fairly simple wedge into the green, which is somewhat crowned and has a single smallish bunker to the left. It's a memorable hole, and I like how there's 20 yards or so of space between the waste bunker and the green, so while it's certainly quite a formidable hazard, it does allow for a bit of wiggle room.

The third hole.

Approaching the third green.

The third green.

The fourth hole is just over 200 yards and is a classic Redan. Going directly at the flag, especially the hole location in the picture, is not a great idea. There's very little green to work with that way, and if you pull your shot even a little, you'll be left with a tough chip and very little green to work with. Far better to aim out to the right and hit a nice gentle draw in that takes the slope of the green down toward the hole. This is the third real Redan that I've played and it's the first one that I managed to play correctly, so I'm feeling quite positive about it. I don't know if it's better than the one at Keney Park, but it's definitely better than Charleston Municipal's. Keney Park's Redan is more dramatic and more difficult if you don't hit the green (especially if you come up short), but this one plays firm and fast, just like the rest of the course. Does better soil and better maintenance beat visual flair and drama? I think I have to give the edge to this, but with the caveat that Keney Park was quite thoroughly soaked when I was there, so part of the fun was ruined.

The fourth hole.

The fifth hole is a mid-length par 4 that's pretty straightforward and easy. The fairway's pretty wide, there's no trouble to speak of save for a gradual right-to-left slope. There's a point where fescue cuts in and narrows the fairway to just 10 or so yards, but it's past the point where even long hitters could reach with a driver. There's not much around the green either, though that fescue does make it look like there's much less space than there actually is. It's a great opportunity for birdie.

The fifth hole.

The fifth green.

The sixth hole is a fairly long par 4 that does play a bit downhill, though it was playing into the wind during our round. While the fairway isn't narrow, it feels narrower because the forest is a bit closer in than on the other holes. I'd recommend the left side; if you stray into the rough on the right side, you may be blocked out by a pine tree that's practically in the fairway. That said, the only greenside bunker is front left, so if the flag is on the left, that may leave a tricky second. 

The sixth hole.

The sixth green. That big bunker right is actually nowhere near the green.

The seventh hole is a pretty flat 165 yard par 3 that's got three small bunkers around the green, which is slightly elevated. A fade is the preferred shot from the tee, but otherwise this isn't anything revolutionary or all that interesting. Not bad, just nothing special.

The seventh hole.

The eighth hole is about 300 yards, which makes it quite reachable, and in fact I think the golfer is encouraged to do so. A lay-up has to contend with that central fairway bunker, and you'd feel really silly going in that on such a short hole. What makes this hole interesting is the green, which is by far the most undulating at Hidden Creek. There's a couple of big mounds in the middle of the green, and if you end up on the wrong side of one of those mounds, something that's very easy to do if you hit the green with your tee shot, you'll have a tough time getting that two-putt birdie. And that's what makes this hole; obviously it's very easy, but if you expect to make birdie and you end up with a par or bogey, you could easily get very frustrated. And that's always a mistake.

The eighth hole.

Approaching the eighth green.

The eighth green.

The ninth hole is the longest hole at Hidden Creek, playing 560 yards. It's not really reachable for most, which makes the tee shot just a matter of hitting the fairway to set up a good third shot. It's the second shot that's interesting; if you lay back to around 150 yards, the fairway is very wide and very open, but once you get to within 100 yards of the green, the fairway narrows and there are several bunkers around. Having a third shot of 150 yards isn't something most people want, but that is the most risk-free option. Now, if you do have the length to go for the green in two, the hole plays a lot differently. There's mounding that cuts through the fairway right where a drive would end up, but you can go further if you go down the left side. But the trees front left of the green will block you out, meaning you'll need a big hook to get to the green, which is actually quite open to long approaches. Like the second hole, there's no immediately correct way to play the hole.

The ninth hole.

Approaching the ninth green.

The ninth green.

That's it for this week, next week we'll take a look at the back nine.