Morris County Golf Club

Overview: Morris County’s 18-hole layout plays to par 70 over 6,522 yards in Morristown. The course sits around the dramatic Punch Bowl landform, with rolling ground, swales, template-style greens and strategic bunkering reflecting the work associated with Charles Blair Macdonald and Seth Raynor. Rather than relying on length alone, the design asks golfers to recognize angles, avoid the wrong side of the green and manage the changing slopes around the historic property. The result is an intimate Golden Age course whose architectural interest is closely tied to its unusual founding story.

History: Morris County Golf Club was organized in April 1894 by women in Morristown and formally opened that June. An 18-hole course was ready for play by 1895, and the club joined the USGA that same year. Seth Raynor, possibly working with Macdonald, redesigned the course in 1916. Morris County became the first New Jersey venue to host a national championship when the U.S. Women’s Amateur was played there in 1896, followed by the U.S. Men’s Amateur in 1898. Two early clubhouses were lost to fires, but the course and its founding identity survived.

Did You Know? Morris County was initially organized and managed by women, a remarkable arrangement in 1894. Its 1896 U.S. Women’s Amateur produced the original Robert Cox Trophy, one of the most ornate trophies in golf, which is now held by the USGA Museum.