Mungeam, Clinton christen Hudson Hills GC,
Westchester’s first new public course in 66 years
NEWCASTLE, N.Y. — It takes a special occasion to upstage a former president, but that was the case when Mark Mungeam-designed Hudson Hills Golf Course celebrated its grand opening here in late May.
Bill Clinton, a resident of neighboring Chappaqua, was on hand to cut the ribbon, but the layout itself — a splendid, daily-fee design on 150 acres of rolling terrain — was definitely the star attraction. The last time a public course debuted here in tony Westchester County, Franklin Delano Roosevelt was midway through his second term.
Westchester has always been a golf Mecca — for the privileged. There are 59 private clubs here. How exactly were 150 acres in the heart of America’s most lucrative real estate market made available for the county’s first public golf course in 66 years?
“The main portion of the land we used for Hudson Hills used to be a golf course,” explains Mungeam, a partner with Uxbridge, Mass.-based Cornish, Silva and Mungeam, Inc. “It was a private club called Pine Ridge when it opened in the 1920s, though the club changed its name many times: It became Sunset Hills, then Pine Ridge again before it took the name ‘Hudson Hills Golf Club’ in mid-1960s.”
The club closed down in 1982, when IBM purchased the property with plans to build a corporate research laboratory there. Those plans never materialized. The county stepped in, bought the land back and retained Mungeam — the man who prepared Chicago’s Olympia Fields Country Club for the 2003 U.S. Open — to design a brand new golf course.
“We appropriated the most recent name for this new project, but we’ve essentially designed a brand new golf course here, a completely new routing. This isn’t a restoration; it’s a reincarnation,” says Mungeam, who played 18 holes with Clinton in the opening-day scramble on May 27. “He was very affable and chatty. Very easy to play with. So much has been written about his ‘Billigans’ and all that — and that’s been the first thing most people have asked me about. It was a casual round, a scramble. But he played it straight up.”
And so the Comeback Kid christened the Comeback Course.
Developed by the Westchester County Department of Public Works and operated (for the county) by Billy Casper Golf Management, Hudson Hills isn’t just the newest public course in Westchester; it’s the best to open in these parts for a decade. Just 30 miles north of Manhattan, Hudson Hills features some significant elevation changes which Mungeam used especially well to create a 6,935-yard, par-71 course with long views and dramatic shot values.
The par-4 13th, one of the architect’s favorites, has quickly emerged as a player’s favorite. Measuring more than 450 yards, it plays from an elevated tee and drops some 50 feet to the fairway below. An angled bunker in the left landing zone marks the strategy: Cozy up to it, or clear it, and the green — protected by a deep bunker front right — opens up to the approach shot.
“From a design standpoint, Hudson Hills is quite classical in nature,” Mungeam says. “There are only 28 bunkers on the entire course. With this sort of terrain, the layout didn’t need bunkers to make it a challenge — just in certain spots for strategy, like the 13th. The 2nd [a 515-yard par-5] is a good example of this restraint. A wetland cuts diagonally across the hole from right to left off the tee, but drives to the right will carom back into the fairway off a natural-grass bank. From there the fairway winds its way down to a green with wetlands nipping in from the right and a rock embankment behind. It’s a thrilling risk-reward hole for big hitters and a fun three-shot hole for everyone else — and there’s not a bunker on it.”
The short 6th measures just 130 yards but illustrates the interest Mungeam created on the putting surfaces at Hudson Hills. A pond guards the left side of this par-3. “What I really like is the way this green sets up — with a swale running through the center,” the architect says. “If you bail out away from the pond, you’ll have a roller coaster two-putt. But if you challenge the water and succeed, you’ll earn a flat putt for birdie.
“I’m pleased with all the par-3s at Hudson Hills. It’s a strong group, each one a little different length and setting. There isn’t one I wouldn’t take to any of the private courses here in Westchester County and worry about it fitting in or making the grade.”
Mungeam — a former member of the Board of Governors at the American Society of Golf Course Architects — has become a familiar name in Met golfing circles. In addition to his renovation work at private clubs such as Maplewood and Green Brook in New Jersey, Mungeam’s original designs include High Bridge (N.J.) Hills GC, the North and South courses at Charleston Springs GC in Millstone Township, N.J., and Colt’s Neck (N.J.) Golf and Country Club.
The architect says he’s particularly pleased with the playability at his latest effort. “I was a little fearful that Hudson Hills, being a public facility, might play too hard — you never know for sure until you actually see people playing on it. But I’m very happy with the finished product; it’s not overbearing at all, whereas better players will be asked to hit a lot of different shots and the course closes really strong. The two finishing holes are both par-4s that play 450 from the back. Seventeen is just brutal; uphill all the way. So be prepared for a tough finish.”
Hudson Hills is the latest in an eclectic group of current projects designed by Mungeam, last seen working the U.S. Open grounds crew at Olympia Fields, carefully raking the bunkers he painstakingly redesigned prior to the championship. Mungeam recently finished restoring the Donald Ross-designed, Wayne Stiles-revised Country Club of Pittsfield in Western Massachusetts, and he’s now busy creating the private Quail Ridge CC in Acton, Mass. Also under construction is the spectacular Golf Club at Oxford Greens in Oxford, Conn., where he’s working again with Billy Casper Golf Management on a daily-fee course in a new Del Webb community. Also in Connecticut, Mungeam is authoring a complete renovation of New London Country Club.
With original designs and course renovations underway from San Antonio to Boston, Chicago to Palm Beach, Cornish, Silva & Mungeam, Inc. is one of the nation’s most sought after course architecture firms. In 2004, CSM’s attention is still focused on Chicago where, on the City’s North Side, partner Brian Silva will break ground this year right on the bluffs above Lake Michigan, crafting a new, upscale daily-fee in the suburb of Fort Sheridan. Silva’s design at Black Creek Club played host to the Nationwide Tour’s Chattanooga Classic in May, while his wholesale renovation of Deerwood Country Club in Jacksonville will be fit for grand re-opening in September.
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[For more information on Cornish, Silva and Mungeam, call 508-278-3407, or visit www.csmgolf.com.]