Essex County Country Club To Host 94th State Open

Essex County Country Club, one of the founding clubs of the New Jersey State Golf Association and the place where the first association meeting was conducted in 1900, will play host to the 94th NJSGA Open Championship for the sixth time in its history. The event is sponsored by Lincoln Motor Cars.

The State Open Championship is set for next Tuesday through Thursday (July 15-17) when the 54-hole, stroke-play tournament is played over the par-71, 7,101-yard venue. The starting field consists of 135 players, both amateur and professional, who are either exempt or qualified at one of four state-wide sectional qualifying sites. After the completion of 36 holes, the field is cut to the low 50 scorers plus ties for the final round.

Defending champion Frank Esposito Jr. of Brooklake leads the starting field that includes 81 qualifiers and 54 exempt players. Of that group, 54 are amateurs..

ECCC has a proud legacy of hosting New Jersey State Golf Association championships, 19 in total including five State Opens (1951, 1954, 1957, 1976, and 1984) as well as the inaugural Amateur Championship in 1900.

Including Esposito, who also won in 1999, 13 former champions from as far back as 1984 (David Glenz 1990, ’88, ‘86 and ’84) will be competing.

Other former champions are Brett Jones of Mountain Ridge (2009), Mark McCormick of Suburban (2008), Brian Komline of Black Oak (2007 and ’05), Jason Lamp of Deal (2006), Ed Whitman of Knickerbocker (2004, ’96, ’95 and ’90), Greg Farrow of Deerwood (2003), Baker Maddera of Rock Spring (2002), Chris Dachisen of North Jersey (2001 and ’97), John DiMarco of Laurel Creek (2000), Steve Sieg of Navesink (1989), Gary Ostrega of Hyatt Hills (1985) and Glenz.

Recent State Amateur champion Mike Stamberger of Spring Lake, who won for a second year in a row, is also in the field.

In 2013, Esposito, 51, who now plays occasionally on the PGA Champions Tour, won in thrilling fashion by one stroke over former PGA Tour pro Jim McGovern of White Beeches at Hackensack Golf Club.

Esposito fired a final-round 67 made up five strokes and finally took the lead with a birdie on the 17th hole, and then two-putted for par on the final hole to become the second-oldest player to win the State Open and hoist the Carl Badenhausen Trophy for a second time.

Whitman was 52 when he won the State Open in 2004. The 14-year gap between Esposito's victories is the longest in the 93-year history of the championship.

“We are privileged to hold this year’s event at Essex County Country Club, one of the best golf courses in the State of New Jersey as well as the metropolitan area,” said NJSGA president Frank O’Brien.

“Essex County was founded in 1887 and is the oldest country club in the state. It also holds special meaning to the NJSGA since it was one of the founding clubs of the New Jersey State Golf Association back in 1900,” O’Brien added. “There are a host of tournament tested players from both the professional and amateur ranks who would enjoy hoisting the winner’s trophy at this prestigious event.”

The golf course was originally designed in 1917 by A.W. Tillinghast and later redesigned in 1928 by Seth Raynor and Charles Banks. The golfers competing in the 2014 State Open will face a stiff test in handling this magnificent golf course with its hilly terrain and challenging greens over the three-day tournament.

The course today has all the familiar impressions of a Seth Raynor/Charles Banks course. Like their mentor C.B. MacDonald, Raynor and Banks favored “template” holes;, i.e, familiar hole designs based on famous “templates” found in Europe. The course has a Redan (No. 17), a Cape (No. 1), an Eden (No. 11), an Alps (No. 14) and a modified Biarritz (No. 15). Banks was also known for deep severe bunkers and elevated green sites with significant undulations.

Over the last 10 years the course had been brought back to Banks’s original form by golf architect Gil Hanse. Hundreds of trees have been removed, green sites expanded to the original sizes and the course has been lengthened to more than 7,100 yards.

This year’s contestants will find a long and difficult track with heavy rough, classic Banks bunkers and severe, fast greens.

The course has also been played by a who’s who of golf’s greatest including Bobby Jones, Francis Ouimet, Walter Hagan, Byron Nelson and Sam Snead. ECCC also was the home of four-time major championship winner and 1939 State Open champion Jim Barnes, who was head pro from 1939-1943.

Over the years ECCC’s prominence has attracted luminaries from the golf, business, political and entertainment worlds as members and visitors. The club counts a former U.S. Secretary of State, a former U.S. Secretary of the Navy, two former U.S. Senators and three former N.J. Governors as well as many luminaries of business and the arts as former members.

Three Presidents (Woodrow Wilson, Theodore Roosevelt and William H. Taft) have visited the club with Taft playing the course in 1910. Sports and entertainment celebrities such as Babe Ruth and Bob Hope have visited and played at the club as well.