Enjoy the read and also listen to The Golf Pilgrim podcast from Baltusrol Lower here... https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-golf-pilgrim/id1743914901?i=1000670526092
Our caddie, whose green reading had inspired a comeback from four down, gave me the line, and my ball followed it like a guided missile.
It trundled at least 35 feet up the 18th green before turning towards the hole. It dropped into the cup for arguably the most surreal par of my life.
This was the same hole where Jack Nicklaus had completed victories in the 1967 and 1980 US Opens. There is even a plaque on the fairway to recognise his magnificent shot into the green with a one-iron.
In common with those occasions, the crowds cheered but this time it was a mere coincidence – they were fixed on the first dance of newlyweds in the clubhouse.
They also missed my Nicklaus-esque concession of a five-footer to our host because a draw was the perfect result in a friendly but competitive USA versus GB encounter.
Baltusrol Lower was the first of a feast of A.W. Tillinghast courses that Mrs W and I played during a week in New Jersey and New York.
Architecture specialist Gil Hanse and his team have returned many of its original features. Consequently, massive bunkers with fescue tops are omnipresent.
Meanwhile, in the unlikely event they can be avoided, the player must also keep out of the cloying Bermuda-style grass that snarls clubheads.
Finally, Brits need to understand that the pace of greens is much faster than in the UK.
Baltusrol combines history, tradition and bonhomie.
We arrived very early to soak up the home of 18 major championships, including seven US Opens, two US Women's Opens, two PGA Championships, and the 2023 Women's PGA Championship.
As visitors, we were treated as members for the day, down to the brass plates on our assigned locker.
Portraits of golfing greats adorn the locker room and the clubhouse, which mixes the past and present quite beautifully.
Having arrived early, we practised our putting for 45 minutes before adjourning for a drink on the terrace next to another plaque stating that "BALTUSROL GOLF CLUB
HAS BEEN DESIGNATED A NATIONAL HISTORIC LANDMARK.
THIS SITE POSSESSES NATIONAL SIGNIFICANCE COMMEMORATING THE HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA."
Thankfully, convivial conversation over a tasty lunch dissipated the pressure we were beginning to feel.
Thus, relaxed by the time we strode to the first tee, Mrs W and I striped the balls down the middle.
This par-five has a quartet of bunkers down the right and trees on the left. My caddie advised me to play short of the cross-bunkers with my second.
It was not the first time I would fear the run of the green and pitch to the front edge, prompting a three-putt and the first lost hole.
I rate the drive on the dogleg par-four second as the most intimidating of the day because the fairway looks like a slither over a horizontal run of bunkers.
After the corner is turned, the player is confronted with a mini-desert with islands of dreaded fescue. Suffice it to say we were two down after two.
The third is a long curving par-four which goes down around trees and a lake before rising past a brook into a green that slants left to right.
Robert Trent Jones renovated the course ahead of the 1954 Open, lengthening the fourth and building a back ledge to the green.
After Baltusrol members complained the hole was too severe, Jones took a group to the new tee and holed-in-one with a four-iron, concluding: "Gentlemen, I think the hole is eminently fair."
I duffed my ball straight into the drink.
My next favourite hole was the par-five seventh which demands keen strategy to avoid diagonal bunkers with more traps to be avoided with the next shot.
The vast green slopes from right to left, meaning that even hitting in regulation is no guarantee of par.
It is followed by a lovely shorter par-four with out-of-bounds down the left and bunkers on either side of a tight fairway.
An approach must be threaded through the traps surrounding the small green. I found the one in front of the green and narrowly missed a sand save.
Mrs W and I were facing an early defeat after struggling on the ninth – a stunning par-three which demands a high fade into the smallest green on the course. It is not a shot either of us possess.
We were four down going into the 11th – a par-four around a bunker and trees with rough awaiting those who hit too far or short.
My second shot found the target, but I was still six feet away from the pin after my speedy first putt on the swirling green. Our caddie, recognising the desperation for a win, showed me the line, and the ball found the cup.
Our host thought my straight shot into the par-three 12th was on its way to the hole but my club selection was short, so I found myself on an island of fescue in another huge bunker.
However, Mrs W, playing off a shorter distance from the ladies' tee, floated her ball to the target in regulation and nailed her par.
The 13th is a cracker – a sharp dogleg over a stream with any overstrikes punished by the tough rough on the other side. The green is double-tiered and falls from back to front.
Our quietly spoken caddie might as well have been draped in a Union Jack by the time we had reached the 15th, where defeat had initially seemed inevitable.
The drive is meant to be between an avenue of trees, but I had clouted one on the left and had to pitch out to avoid a stream across the fairway.
The perched green is above a massive bunker and with our hopes pinned on Mrs W, she shot through the green and duffed her first return.
However, the caddie honed his advice with keen precision and she saw her next shot slide down towards the hole and in for a save.
Better was to come on the 16th, a par-three surrounded by sand. Its undulating green is fiendish for anyone who doesn't land their shot within six feet of the flag.
Mercifully, Mrs W did just that and sank her birdie.
The par-five 17th is one of the most iconic holes in American golf because of a mid-fairway desert dotted with grassy mounds, known by members as Sahara.
If that is avoided, there is another hazard in front of the green, which is nearly as big. My caddie instructed that I should attack it sensibly by not taking on either. I almost nabbed a par, but my six left us all square.
Our host was a very good golfer who had played some amazing shots. His son was playing his first game since April because of a damaged shoulder, but he could hit the ball a thousand miles.
We stood on the par-five 18th tee all square and drives from our host and me were side by side in front of a stretch of water.
He knocked his ball down the right over the expanse and safe while I crassly stated: "That I hadn't come all this way to lay up."
Thus, my three-wood duff headed straight towards the pond, only to defy physics and bounce off the water to safety.
It was so close to the edge I had to knock sidewards and then clipped down the fairway.
Shot four was heading towards the right-hand bunker before taking a very unlikely kick to the left.
Thus, it was written that I would complete the most bizarre par of my life to put the seal on one of the most memorable rounds of our travels.
Comments