Franklin Lakes · New Jersey · Private course
Nine permanent teeing areas. One permanent cup.
Nine holes · one cup
The course
Ashmont Golf Club is a private nine-hole short course in Franklin Lakes, New Jersey.
Nine permanent teeing areas are set around the property. All nine play to one permanent green and one permanent cup. A hole is defined by the tee it starts from: play until the ball is holed, write it down, walk to the next tee.
What separates the holes is not length but angle and obstruction. Approaches come from an arc of roughly a hundred degrees, and the ground in between includes a swimming pool, a driveway, a fenced garden, three wooded areas, a cart path, a patio, mulch beds and a mature oak standing ten yards from the cup.
The green is a raised platform retained on three sides by a brown stone wall about three feet tall. Every hole must fly it. No approach at Ashmont can be run along the ground, which is why holes of twenty-six and thirty-three yards are not the formalities their yardages suggest.
Two holes are measured along their intended playing routes rather than in a straight line, because on both the direct line is blocked — by woods and the oak on the fifth, and by the house on the ninth. This follows the usual convention for a dogleg, where card yardage tracks the route rather than the crow.
The holes
Wide and gentle — but still over the wall, like every hole here.
The easiest hole on the property. Twenty-six yards and a clean line.
Twenty-one yards of pool and boulder wall to clear. The bold line goes left of the oak, under the branches, onto the green.
A fence to clear six yards off the tee, then a clean look at the green.
The direct line runs through ten yards of woods under the oak. Lay up left, then chip over the wall.
The longest single shot on the course. Black River off the tee, then a fence.
Sixteen yards off mulch, with the wall eleven yards out.
Cart path off the tee, then a straightforward wedge.
The house blocks the direct line. North through the front yard, then back east across Black River.
Course map
Drawn from surveyed course geometry. Every boundary, hazard and teeing area below is mapped from its true position.
Plan view · north up · all nine holes play to the cup at right
The card
Printed two-sided. Names, yardages, pars and stroke indexes on the front; the full local rules and course records on the back.
Local rules
Played under the Rules of Golf except as modified below.
One permanent cup shared by all nine holes. The putting surface is raised and held by a brown stone wall about three feet tall. Every hole must carry it — there is no running a ball onto this green.
Penalty area. Driveway, road and parking, mapped as one continuous river. A ball in Black River is not played as it lies: one penalty stroke, drop within a club length of the nearest dry ground where the ball last crossed the edge.
Penalty area. The pool. A ball in the water is not played as it lies: one penalty stroke, drop on the nearest playable grass to where the ball entered, no nearer the hole.
No play zone. A ball in the Garden is not played. Free relief, but you must place in the Garden Drop Zone — even when the ball was sitting closer to the hole.
Penalty zones. Not played as they lie — relief for one penalty stroke.
Free relief: one club length, no nearer the hole, no penalty. The east mulch bed is the exception — it is played as it lies.
Playable if found. Not found is lost, and lost is stroke and distance.
It sits inside the putting surface. A first tee shot finishing in the inner ring is an automatic birdie from a par 3 and an automatic eagle from a par 4. A second tee shot earns nothing but free relief — the only relief at Ashmont permitted nearer the hole.
Played from whatever surface they sit on. The seventh tees directly off mulch. No improving the lie, no clearing the ground.
No gimmies in tournament play. Every ball is holed out regardless of distance. The green collects acorns and it is not always kind.
Course data