Camden Country Club: A Charming Old School Donald Ross Dreamscape

November 20, 2014

By Mike Dojc

Camden Country Club’s roots go back to the early 1900s when the charming midlands city was a winter haven for northerners looking for some R&R. It originally went by the moniker Kirkwood Links and was built as an amenity to the Kirkwood Hotel which stood on what now is a polo field adjacent to No. 13. Back then it was a rudimentary hits and giggles course for resort guests to get their sphere chasing ya-yas out on.

Then in 1922, three-time U.S. Amateur Champion Walter Travis got the call to spiff it up and lend it some cache and gravitas. By the end of the ‘30s the members wanted to really take the course up a notch and made the call to Donald Ross who by then was contemplating retirement. Ross, of Pinehurst No. 2 fame, is the Scottish transplant who wrote the blueprint for the American golf experience in the first half of the 20^th century and Camden is the golf design mega star’s lone 18-hole layout in the Palmetto state.

Ross was tight with Travis and he was a big fan of his routing so he delighted at the chance to come on down and check Camden out. Ross redid all the greens and put his finishing touches on the course, bestowing upon the grassy canvas the clever contours that continue to bewitch and dazzle the lucky golfers who have the privilege of playing her.

“The key here is you have to be good on and around the greens,” explains head pro Matt McCarley. “The long ball hitters need to have a great short game in order to compete. It equalizes things.”

“Sometimes you only have 60% of a green that is usable,” he adds. The other edges fall off so you have to be precise with your short iron shots.”

Verdict: Camden Country Club lives up to its billing as one of the world’s longest short courses. 6300 yards may seem slight by contemporary standards but this ego slayer will give golfers of the mind that only a 7000+ yard modern gargantuan can be bomb dot com a stark reality check. Aside from telltale Ross signatures like natural waste areas in lieu of rough and domed greens, a unique feature at Camden CC is a railroad crossing on the back nine that runs along the runs along the 12th and 13th holes and also comes into play on 14. If your tee shot takes a plunge into a coal-filled hopper car you can tell your buddies you drove it 200 yards but then it kept on rolling on the rails for another 10, 000.