How are a men’s lifestyle/entertainment multimedia empire and public golf in New Jersey related? The answer lies on a piece of land in the northwest corner of the state in Sussex County.
Before there was OnlyFans, there was Playboy, and in 1970 the Great Gorge Golf Club was built in Vernon and opened as the Playboy Club. While most of the appeal lied in the Playboy-branded hotel with numerous activities and amenities, the club also featured 27 holes of championship golf designed by George Fazio.
The clubhouse at Great Gorge has a bar and restaurant, as well as a deck overlooking the course and the Mountain Creek ski area in the background.
Great Gorge comprises three nine-hole courses, each named for a prominent feature. The Quarryside nine has multiple holes that play through an area carved out of the mountainous rock forms. The Lakeside nine will feature the most water hazards of the three nines. Lastly, the Railside nine plays on either side of the still-active railroad track. I headed up to Great Gorge in the late fall where I would play the Quarry and Rail nines.
While there are distinctions between the nines that can be noticed in the holes that feature their signature namesakes, there is also enough consistency that made playing both the Quarry and Rail sides feel as one continuous, 18-hole course. The green complexes offer mostly simple bunkering, but the surfaces they protect are well-contoured and can roll at relatively serious speeds for public golf.
Number 125 – Quarryside
The only starting hole of the three nines that is not a downhill par 4, the 1st at the Quarry is a relatively straightforward, mid-length par 3. From there, it carves its way through a few elevation changes.
Hole 1, par 3. The signs at Great Gorge are a nice touch.The silo on 2. The tees are back towards where the silo’s shadow points. Golfers must hit to the landing area in the bottom right of the frame before turning their attention leftwards toward the green in the distance on this par 5. A wide-angle look at the green at 4, with some of the rock formations behind it.The approach at 5. This picture isn’t quite wide enough to show it, but your shot into the green will be through an area pinched by flanking rock walls. You can just see the beveled areas on either side where the foot of these walls meets ground level.Hole 6, par 3. A challenging all-water carry from the tees.Hole 7, par 4. A straightaway hole whose defense lies in the water hazard running the entire length on the left, as well as OB right.Hole 9, par 4. The approach plays significantly uphill into this two-tiered green.
Number 126 – Railside
After returning up the hill from hole 9 on the Quarryside, the Railside 9 starts with a beautiful downhill tee shot into a very wide landing area. Once you’ve holed out on the first, the course then crosses the railroad tracks for which its named.
The green at 1 on the Railside is in the center of the frame, though the tees you see are actually for the 1st hole on the Lakeside, which play off to the left. The paths are narrow and indeed steep. This is not the place to test-drive the carts.The tracks splitting the Railside from some of the Quarryside. On the left is the green at 6 and the par-4 7th of the Quarry. To the right of the tracks is the 2nd on the Rail at the top of the frame, and the Rail’s signature 3rd hole in the center-right. You can see the trestle supports that remain of where the railroad used to run. From there playing to the top right corner of the picture is hole 4, a dog-leg right par 4. Hole 5, par 3. Easily the most diabolical green on the property, at least of what I played between the Quarry and the Rail nines.Uphill and only 156 yards from the back tees, it’s easy enough to hit as a target. But its severe slope requires some deadly accuracy – and perhaps some luck – to be able to hold in a position for birdie.Having missed the green at 5 in one of the invisible bunkers to its right, a decent shot out at the pin had me roll all the way down here, completely off the green. This ground-level pic shows why, with the hole sitting 2-3 feet above where this fringe is.Solid flags.Hole 6, par 5. 566 yards from the Green tees and playing well downhill as seen here.Plenty of room to miss left. This is a must-send tee shot.Being an off-season round – and having played pretty miserably up to this point – I decided to go for the green in two from about 230 yards. The risk was topping my 3-wood into a reeded creek that runs across the fairway about 150 yardsfrom the green. The reward was this 18-footer for an eagle, which I holed for the 4th of my career.Sunlight faintly streaking across the sign at 8. This par-4 really narrows out in the landing area of a driver, with water to the left.The sun sets over the derelict hotel on the Great Gorge property, now nothing more than a memory of a bygone era.
Orson Rosas Golf 