Roaring Gap Club

Favorite Hole

No. 12, par 4, 290-371 yards

Natural landforms, used well, produce unique golf holes. That’s the lesson of No. 12 at Roaring Gap.

It’s essentially a ridge-to-ridge par 4: the tee sits on a ridge, and the green sits on another about 350 yards away. What makes the hole stand out is how the shoulder of a third ridge cuts across the fairway from high right to low left. The conservative play is to the left, around the landform, which leaves an uphill short-iron approach from a flattish lie. It’s tempting, though, to cut off distance by aiming to the right, directly over the hill. The problem is that if you don’t make the carry, you’ll be stuck on the upslope with no view of the pin. In order to hit the green, you’ll need to work a right-hander’s fade around the trees—not an easy task with the ball well above your feet.

Played sanely, this is a simple short par 4. But Donald Ross knew that golfers aren’t always sane.

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Overall Thoughts

Many artists knowingly create minor works to supplement, or contrast with, their major statements. John Steinbeck wrote not only hefty novels like Grapes of Wrath but also light comedies like Cannery Row. Paul Thomas Anderson makes both serious films (There Will Be Blood) and more nonchalant ones (Licorice Pizza). In the 1980s, Bruce Springsteen went from the ambitious River to the sparse Nebraska to the arena-ready Born in the U.S.A. to the quiet, lonely Tunnel of Love.

The major/minor distinction is one of scale, not quality. Often the little books, movies, and albums turn out better than the large ones, perhaps because they’re not as weighed down by the responsibilities of greatness. I’ve gone back to Cannery Row half a dozen times at least; I read Grapes of Wrath once and don’t intend to pick it up again.

Golf architects rarely get enough gigs to experiment with both major and minor works. Donald Ross is an exception.

At Pinehurst No. 2 and Oakland Hills, Ross built his tours de force—big, difficult courses that can handle professional championships even today. At Roaring Gap, Ross’s task was humbler: to create an enjoyable retreat for members who got their fill of serious golf in the colder months.

Just as I’d reach for Licorice Pizza instead of There Will Be Blood on a Friday evening after a long workweek, I’d rather spend an August afternoon playing Roaring Gap than grinding for bogeys at Pinehurst No. 2.

The course’s best stretch is in the middle. The first four holes climb from the golf shop to the lawn in front of the Graystone Inn—an adequate opening sequence but, in light of what comes after, easy to forget. The tempo quickens with the par-4 fifth hole, which races downhill, past four bunkers staggered in an arrangement Ross frequently used (short left, middle right, long left, greenside right), to a green that appears slope toward the player but in fact falls away. A running approach works nicely here. The sixth is a pulse-quickening drop-shot par 3 with a green guarded by steep drop-offs short, right, and long. The par-5 seventh then tumbles across billowing terrain to a green perched on a hill. It’s bunkerless, with the topography providing plenty of interest. The eighth then plunges to the low point of the property, and the ninth clambers up a steep slope. Both are mid-length par 4s but use the land in opposite ways.

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The action continues through the first few holes of the back nine, which traverse similarly eventful terrain. The standouts are No. 11, another bunkerless par 5 that attacks big landforms head-on, and No. 12, profiled above. The hole designs themselves are restrained: bunkers here and there, and greens with tilts, squared-off corners, rippling edge contours, and the occasional tier. This simplicity allows the land—the massive furrows crossing the 11th and 12th fairways, the rollercoaster descent that starts 200 yards off the 14th tee—to be the primary source of the course’s character. As it should be.

In Roaring Gap’s modern routing, Nos. 17 and 18 are a short par 4 and a long par 3 that occupy a separate paddock east of the golf shop. Behind the 17th green is one of the most stunning views in American golf.

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From an architectural standpoint, the holes are satisfactory. The 17th rewards players who hug the out-of-bounds on the right with a better angle into the green, and 18th demands a strong strike with a long club. Ultimately, though, the views are more memorable than the golf, which is not the case in the preceding 11 holes.

It’s worth noting, then, that Ross’s 1925 map of Roaring Gap, which hangs in the golf shop, reveals that the current nines are reversed. He intended today’s 17th and 18th holes to be Nos. 8 and 9. Ross’s routing therefore had a different cadence: it began with a series of arresting holes (Nos. 10-12), followed by views (8-9) and less compelling golf (1-4) in the middle, and concluded with a thrill ride (5-9). Yet the current routing makes sense as well. It starts with a quiet sequence, features the best holes in the heart of the round, and saves the clifftop vista for the finale.

So it’s a good topic to discuss: which routing do you prefer?

Add this post-round debate to the beautiful landscapes and exciting but manageable golf that Roaring Gap offers, and you couldn’t ask for much more from a summer-retreat course. -GM

1 Egg

Roaring Gap earns its Egg with a combination of very good design, very good land, and very good presentation. The course, in our opinion, doesn’t reach elite status in any one category but performs well across all three. We see one main area of potential improvement: almost all of the hole corridors on the front nine could use some widening. We’d love to see the club continue what it started in the early 2010s by pushing out more mowing lines and removing some additional trees.

Additional Content

Course Tour

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