The Pine Valley Golf Course & Club were built by George Crump, an amateur designer, hwever it is considered the best golf course in the United States.
In the year 1912, the game of golf had scarcely been in the United States 20 years but adherents were already looking for ways to spend every day possible on the golf course. One such group was a band of well-bred Philadelphia sportsmen who sought a golf course within easy distance that could be played throughout the winter. They set their sights on the scrub pinelands of southern New Jersey where the weather was milder than near the city on the other side of the Delaware River.
One of the group was George Arthur Crump, an accomplished golfer and resident of Merchantville, New Jersey. Crump was given the assignment of scouting a suitable site and he settled on a stretch of rolling, sandy ground deep in the pinelands. Crump knew the land from frequent hunting trips in the woods, which teemed with small game.
The group organized to form the Pine Valley Golf Club in 1913 and 184 acres of the scruffy pinelands were purchased on which to build a golf course (over the years Pine Valley would spread to 623 acres, of which 416 remain virgin woodland). Crump was appointed chairman of the Greens Committee and it would be his responsibility to build the Pine Valley golf course.
George Crump had never designed a golf course before but he knew what he wanted his golf course to look like. He didn't want any hole to be laid out parallel to the next. While playing one hole he didn't want to see any other hole. Crump did not want more than two successive holes to play in the same direction. And he felt that a round of golf on his course should require every club in the bag to complete.
Dressed in his favorite knickers, high laced shoes and floppy hat, Crump worked out his holes by hitting golf shots rather than by drawing sketches. To sharpen his fledgling design skills he traveled to many of the famous links in Scotland and England.
Despite his strong opinions, George Crump knew he was an amateur golf course designer and he solicited the opinions of many noted golfers and architects for Pine Valley. H.S. Colt, an English designer of renown, was retained to review the plans and offer suggestions. Some of the reviewers were not so encouraging. At first many called Pine Valley, destined to be regarded as the greatest course in the United States, as "Crump's Folly."
The expanse of sandy scrub pines was so unappealing that skeptics wondered if Crump could even grow grass on it. To create Pine Valley, Crump had to direct the removal of over 22,000 stumps that had to be pulled out with special steam-winches and horse-drawn cables because dynamite only blew up the sand around the stump. Marshlands were drained, dams built and underbrush cleared away.
Crump built a bungalow along the 5th hole and oversaw construction. The first grass seed went into the ground in the fall of 1913 and the first 11 holes unofficially opened for play in February 1914. George Crump did more than oversee the construction of Pine Valley, he sacrificed much of his personal fortune to its creation. He sold his luxury hotel in Philadelphia and plowed as much as $275,000 of his money into Pine Valley.
George Crump died in 1918. Only 14 of the holes at Pine Valley were ready at the time and the final four holes - #12, #13, #14, #15 - would be completed by other designers although his mark remained on the final touches. George Crump never saw the completed masterpiece he created that is the best golf course in the history of America.
