Mountain Ridge Country Club

Overview: The Ross routing at Mountain Ridge runs through 18 holes at par 71 and measures 6,803 yards in the current profile. Donald Ross designed the West Caldwell course around two nine-hole loops, each returning dramatically uphill to the clubhouse. The setting combines open slopes, mature trees and carefully shaped greens, with the change in elevation providing much of the course’s visual and strategic rhythm. A fieldstone clubhouse by Clifford C. Wendehack anchors the property and reinforces the architectural character of a course built during the Golden Age of American golf.

History: Mountain Ridge was founded in 1912 and first played on a 176-acre West Orange site, where a nine-hole course by club professional David Hunter was ready for play in 1913. A.W. Tillinghast redesigned that original course in 1916–17, but the steep site eventually proved difficult to develop. The club moved to 282 acres in West Caldwell in 1929 and hired Donald Ross to create the present layout. Construction began that May and the course was essentially complete by September. Later work by Ron Prichard restored many Ross features, and Mountain Ridge has hosted the U.S. Senior Amateur and the 2021 LPGA Cognizant Founders Cup.

Did You Know? The first West Orange course was marked by a softball game because so few of the club’s founders knew how to play golf. The current course also preserves Ross’s unusual two-loop concept, even though the order of the nines has since been reversed.