PJC in Writing: Triple Threat – Municipal Golf in New Jersey's Essex County

PJC is a published author and freelance golf writer in addition to being a professional editor and proofreader. The following is a feature article published in the May 2025 edition of The Met Golfer, the official publication of the Metropolitan Golf Association.

View the article and the rest of the issue at The Met Golfer online.

TRIPLE THREAT

With Weequahic Golf Course set to make its grand debut in July, the three Essex County golf courses are as much a triumph of agronomy and architecture as they are a model of collaboration.

By Phil Carlucci

A trip to Weequahic Golf Course is a smorgasbord for the senses, and the feasting comes fast.

Departing jets roar closely overhead as snaking highway ramps and the industrial outskirts of Newark Liberty Airport give way to the green grass of bucolic Weequahic Park. A road winds amid ballfields and bird songs, and like a portal back to 1913, when George Lowe of Baltusrol designed New Jersey’s oldest public golf course, a welcoming arch filters away lingering city noise. An elevated fairway awaits, and a rusty first approach is apt to find rest out of bounds in a cemetery.

As players climb the newly elevated tee of the par-3 second, New York City’s One World Trade Center and local Newark, N.J. landmarks stand tall on the horizon. But the most unique sight of them all might be somewhere down below — Essex County’s director of golf rumbling along on a mower.

Newark Liberty Airport's control tower and the New York City skyline are visible beyond the second and third holes at Weequahic.

“I’m a turf guy,” says Tim Christ, one of eight graduates of turf-science programs, to be exact, at the three Essex County municipal courses — Weequahic, Hendricks Field in Belleville and the centerpiece, Francis A. Byrne, in West Orange. All have undergone major renovations totaling more than $20 million by New Jersey-based architect Stephen Kay in the past five years, with Weequahic’s set to make its grand debut this summer. “Sometimes I say we have seven turf degrees on our staff,” Christ says, “but I forget about myself.”

It’s no small oversight, and not because Christ, a 6-foot-6-inch pillar of managerial strength and energy who manned the Rutgers offensive line in the early ‘90s, is hard to miss. It has more to do with his showstopper of a golf resume that reels off names like Merion, Pine Valley, Hamilton Farm and Metedeconk.

That resume now includes two wildly popular revamps of historic, publicly accessible Charles Banks classics. Hendricks Field and Byrne give Essex residents a rare opportunity to take on the template holes made famous by Banks and his Golden Age mentors C.B. Macdonald and Seth Raynor. Byrne’s second hole is a restored Biarritz par-3 canted left to right. Hendricks Field sports a challenging Redan at #8. Between the two courses there are close to 20 templates built or inspired by Banks.

“You don’t get to see holes like these all the time,” says Mike Puorro, cohost of The DROP, a Jersey-focused golf podcast. “They make you start to appreciate the architecture and dive deeper into the history.”

Weequahic will surely be the county’s third and possibly most rousing success story. There, Kay and Christ and their crew of “first-ballot hall of fame” builders and shapers were not bound to a Banks design. Instead they had a blank canvas on which to freestyle infinity and punchbowl greens, open up vistas and debate bunker placement or a green contour until somebody won their case.

“People are going to be amazed when they see it for the first time,” Christ says.

But more than a triumph of agronomy and architecture, Essex County golf is a model of collaboration. The path to these modern renovations began two decades ago, and their execution could set a new standard for how municipalities let their golf courses shine. At the very least, it will demonstrate what is possible at the municipal level when all the right pieces are in place and working in unison.

“You can’t build anything without the right team,” says Essex County Executive Joseph DiVincenzo, Jr. Known by many simply as “Joe D,” DiVincenzo boasts a deep passion for golf, sharp vision for what residents want from their parks, and a knack for raising money. And like the Joe D who wore Yankee pinstripes, DiVincenzo knows something about streaks. The man who calls Essex County Parks his summertime getaway — sorry, Jersey shore — has won every election since 2002.

Kay first joined the Essex County team as a consultant early in DiVincenzo’s tenure. “Joe D is the main reason this is all happening,” he says. “He loves parks and he knows how to get funding.”

At that time, the first U.S. Open at New York’s Bethpage State Park was still fresh in mind, and Ed Brockner thought Essex County could benefit from that “People’s Country Club” spirit. “Bethpage kind of kicked off the idea of what municipal golf could be,” says Brockner, then the director of development for The First Tee of Metropolitan New York and later a consultant on the Essex course renovations.

With DiVincenzo eager to improve the area’s parks, Brockner pointed to Banks and Frederick Law Olmsted. Olmsted, of New York’s Central Park fame, designed Weequahic Park and Branch Brook Park, where Hendricks Field is located.

“Essex had courses with really cool histories and designs,” Brockner says. “We saw how they could have a huge impact as community assets, where golf could be enjoyed by everybody.” This aligned with Olmsted’s principles — the benefits of open space and self-sustaining resources that are not just for the wealthy. Weequahic’s First Tee program opened soon after.

On the grounds, Kay drew up irrigation plans and renovated bunkers and tees. But the courses didn’t have anyone suited to maintain them or even grow grass. The county needed a director to oversee the work as both a blunt operational force and a turf expert. So Kay pushed for “Big Tim.”

“The conditions, the service, the management. Everything got better once Tim came in,” Brockner says. Within three years Christ had the superintendents and assistants in place to make the kinds of changes that lure players back. Weequahic went from 12,000 rounds the year Christ arrived to nearly 40,000 in an abbreviated 2024 season.

It helped too that the courses are so wallet-friendly. Golf media personality Matt Ginella named Weequahic a hidden gem in a 2016 Golf Channel segment and later listed the course on his U.S. “ladder of value golf.” Last fall GOLF Magazine listed Byrne and Hendricks Field among the top 100 American courses you can play for under $100.

With the community well served, every successful project, whether a tree clearing or an infrastructure upgrade, “created political will, created win-win scenarios for the county,” Brockner says. And they led to infusions of funding for the next project, often from state and county grants. State Senator Teresa Ruiz helped bring in funds for a new First Tee campus and practice course at Hendricks, which became a standout feature of the course’s 2021 restoration project. Around 600 area students participate in First Tee programs at the two Essex sites each year, in addition to MGA GOLFWORKS interns working in maintenance and administration at the county courses.

“When you have people who are committed, you do whatever you can to get money for them,” says DiVincenzo.

Opened in 1929, Hendricks Field is the only Banks course specifically designed for the public. With the novice player in mind, Banks scaled back his notoriously bold features — the slopes a touch softer, the bunker faces a bit shorter. But by the time Mark Fortgang of nearby Verona became a regular at the three Essex munis in the late 1990s, Hendricks was simply a “mess” with chronic drainage issues. “It was a strange layout and in terrible shape all the time,” he says.

The first full renovation of the three courses addressed the water issues, and the holes lost to the First Tee facility were replaced with new ones built in adjacent parkland. There, Kay built a Road Hole-style green and a Banks-inspired Biarritz.

“It’s a complete transformation,” Fortgang says.

At Byrne, the group had the bones of a Golden Age classic. In 1925, Essex County Country Club brought in Raynor and his associate Banks to redesign its existing A.W. Tillinghast course. Raynor’s sudden death the following year left its completion to Banks. And when the club sought a new West Course down the hill next door, Banks won that job too. (A 1925 letter from Banks to the club detailing the complicated work involved in building on the hillside hangs in the ECCC locker room.) In 1978 the club sold the West Course, now Byrne, to the county.

The 2023 renovation stayed true to the remaining 11 Banks templates while making their features relevant to the present-day player. “I try to imagine, if I could bring back Macdonald or Banks or Raynor and have them study the modern game, what would they do?” Kay says. “You have to rebuild the templates so they are maintainable and sustainable.”

Many of the remodeled holes are in the running for Byrne’s best: the “Punchbowl” third, a Raynor-inspired dogleg at #15, or the picturesque ninth — “Westbound” — that tumbles downhill toward a thumbprint green.

“I was blown away by the course,” Puorro says of the revamped Byrne. “I left there mesmerized.”

Or maybe one of the two finishing holes gets top billing. Both have special meaning to Christ. Examining the mundane closing par-4s prior to the renovation, Kay and Christ saw a last-minute opportunity to end the course with a bang — a Banks-style reverse redan par-3 at #17, followed by a massive par-5 closer. Ultimately, though, the change would be up to the county head who’d been green-lighting their plans for years.

“If you don’t have steady leadership at the top that’s able to commit to the work, if you have a revolving door, it’s so tough to get work like this done,” Christ says.

Joe D told them to go for it. The name chosen for the new 18th:

“Executive Decision.”