Course Guides
Our 9 favorite courses you can play on the Jersey Shore
Memorial Day Weekend has arrived, which means that not only is it a great time to be an American, but it’s also a great time to be an American who plays golf. There’s an argument to be made that MDW is the No. 1 “we gotta get out there” weekend of the golf season. Everybody’s itching. Everybody still has hope that this could be their best year yet. Everybody, for the most part, has Monday off. If you don’t have a tee time this weekend, you’re simply doing it wrong.
Ideally, your day on the course will be followed, or preceded, by some time at the beach, by a lake or anywhere else you can drink in the great outdoors (literally and figuratively). One of my favorite places to play golf on MDW is at the Jersey Shore, which has no shortage of great golf courses no matter if you’re in the Monmouth County area (more North) or all the way down in Cape May (as South as it gets).
We consider ourselves experts in the golf scene down the Jersey Shore, so we’ve come up with a list of our nine favorite places YOU can play if you happen to be down there this summer. Some housekeeping notes—reminder, these are OUR favorite ones YOU can play. Translation: Between both of us, we've played just about all the public courses down the Jersey Shore, and these are the nine* we love to play most. So no, we didn’t “miss” any or “forget” this one or that one. We’ve handpicked this group as the ones we most enjoy and think you might, too. And they are all public. As much as we love Galloway National, Manasquan River, Metedeconk National or Hollywood Golf Club (or even the formerly public Atlantic City Country Club, which would've been No. 1 on this list), those are private courses and we wouldn’t be a man of the people if we were only shouting those out.
Scroll through our selection of the best courses down the Jersey Shore, and be sure to click through to each individual course page for bonus photography and reviews from our course panelists. We also encourage you to leave your own ratings on the courses you’ve played … so you can make your case for why each course deserves, or doesn't deserve, more notoriety.
The locals refer to it as “Spring Ghetto,” but not because it’s in the ghetto or anything like that. It’s, quite literally, a ghetto-a** course, and I mean that in the nicest way possible. When you pull in, the snob in you will start thinking all the snob things, and that feeling will carry over to the first hole, which has a gigantic net situated about 230 yards out in the right rough in order to block balls from killing anyone on the 17th green. It’s also a par 5 that, depending on how straight you can hit your driver, could leave you with less than 150 yards in. Things get super wacky at the eighth, a dog-leg left par 5 that forces you to hit one only about 180 yards off the tee or you could take driver over the internal out-of-bounds and trees and end up with a flip wedge onto the green (true story, I've done it. You could also possibly kill someone on 10 tee or 9 green, however). The eighth is also where you first reach the halfway house, which is also there for you on the 12th green, 13th tee and 14th green if you need it. Unless you are ordering transfusions, in which case you should stop at 1 because they are STRONG at Spring Ghetto. The first time you play here you’ll tell yourself you’re never coming back. Then, when you can’t get a tee time anywhere else, you’ll have Spring Meadow to fall back on and eventually you will fall in love with it like I have. If you want to have fun, make some birdies and not take everything so seriously, Spring Meadow is the place for you. Snobs need not apply. --Christopher Powers, senior writer
Full disclosure, my parents have a shore house that is all of 8 minutes from Shark River, so this is where I play most of my golf when I’m down there. But I wouldn’t keep going back if I didn’t love it, and if it wasn’t such a challenge. Shark opens with a pair of 420-yard-plus par 4s, the first of which requires a draw and the second a fade. Execute on either and you will have a great look into the green. Fail and you’re staring at an In’N Out Double-Double start. But then it lulls you back to sleep with a par 3, a driveable par 4, another short par 4 and a gettable par 5. By the time you eventually bounce back, though, the closing finish pounds you over the head, starting with No. 15, which I believe is one of the most difficult holes in N.J. No. 16, a par 4, plays 450 from the tips and the 18th is a 586-yard par 5 that plays about 700 yards. I’ve shot mid-70s here and low-90s, likely within the same month. It’s always in great shape and the mix of extremely difficult and extremely gettable holes never gets old. Afterward, make sure to hit up Kelly's Tavern right up the road for the coldest post-round beer known to mankind. --CP
Ballamor—formerly a private club and now part of the Ottinger Golf Group—is the perfect addition to any Atlantic City-area golf trip. Built by Ed Ault and Thomas E. Davis on 350 acres of rolling land, wide fairways and large, interesting green complexes are a great test for all levels of player. In a sneaky area of good public golf, Ballamor stands out as one of the best in South Jersey. --Stephen Hennessey, dep. managing editor
If you’re doing a little weekend trip to Atlantic City, or you can’t find a tee time anywhere else and don’t mind a drive, Twisted Dune is a must. I’ve heard rumors that they’ve put the kibosh on this and/or limited it, but my first two times playing Twisted, I was told it was BYO beer so I did and the first thing the cart guys did was bring out a massive Home Depot bucket full of ice to keep the beers cold the entire day. If you aren’t sold by that, just wait until you get on the golf course, which is among the most unique in the state. The sandy, links-style layout designed by Archie Struthers feels like it belongs out in Oregon at Bandon Dunes or down in Florida at Streamsong as opposed to the Garden State. It can be brutally hard especially if the wind is up but, like most links courses, it rewards good shots and punishes bad ones. Once you finish off the mammoth, 495-yard par-4 18th (No. 1 handicap), make the 20-minute trip to A.C. and keep the party rolling. --CP
I never even knew this place existed until about four or five years ago when Steve suggested it, and now it’s become a go-to spot, particularly because it’s the perfect halfway point between Long Beach Island (where my cousin and uncle have beach house) and the Monmouth County area (where my parents' house is). It’s on the pricey side, but weekend morning tee times are gettable and there are three 9s, which keeps play flowing on busy Saturdays and Sundays. The Ridge 9 is my favorite, though both Links and Pines are just as good and each 9 features non-stop risk-reward that can allow the good player to take it deep if they’ve got it going. --CP
Charleston Springs Golf Course: South and North (Greens fee range: $48-80 non-resident walking)
Millstone Township, NJ
Chuck Springs is the rare 36-hole facility where you don’t care which 18 you play because they are both equally good. It also has a full range (uncommon for the Monmouth County Courses) and a huge putting green next to the clubhouse you can complete your warm up on before heading out. Both North and South require a short drive over a bridge to get to the first tee, which makes you feel like you are completely away from it all for four-plus hours. Every club in the bag will get use on both courses, which each feature multiple par 5s where both eagle and double are very much in play and a number of par 3s that require less than 6-iron (more of these, please). Both are also very inviting off the tee while also providing you with several shot options to set up the best possible approach in. Have never and will never have a bad time at Charleston Springs. --CP
Shore Gate is a challenging, target-heavy golf course—likely inspired by nearby Galloway National with a hint of Pine Valley—that's very popular with Avalon vacationers. Penal, deep bunkers as well as tall pines with pine straw and sand present a strong challenge to public golfers. It's a former member of Golf Digest's Best Courses in New Jersey but still among the very best public options in South Jersey. --SH
In my opinion, the best-designed golf course down the Jersey Shore. Major shoutout to Robert Trent Jones. Hard to get the boys to get there, though, as it is on the more expensive side for the Monmouth County Course. As it should be. Hominy is challenging enough to have hosted some big-time events over the years—1983 U.S. Amateur Public Links and the 1995 U.S. Women’s Amateur Public Links—but not so challenging as to punish the weekend warrior. You better be able to shape shots and carry some bunkers off the tee, though. Hominy doesn’t favor the drawer or the fader, it favors the player willing to take on some obstacles and be rewarded with much shorter shots into the greens. --CP
The final course on our ranking is one we haven't played, but we can't wait to see. Old Bridge Golf Club at Rose-Lambertson reopened last fall on the site of the old Glenwood Country Club, a private club that sold its land. The redesigned course by prolific New Jersey architect Stephen Kay has gotten rave reviews and is currently a candidate for our Best New/Redesigned survey. We're anxious to see this one for ourselves!
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