Pine Valley Golf Membership, lengthy held in excessive esteem within the golf neighborhood for its architectural options and stern check to high-end gamers, is about to interrupt from custom and permit ladies members for the primary time whereas additionally hanging all restrictions amongst ladies golfers presently in place.
Each the Golf Journal and Golf Digest web sites reported that an e mail from membership president Jim Davis was despatched to members on Friday night after an annual assembly of trustees and members saying that the membership had made a “historic change.”
For years, the membership didn’t allow ladies on the grounds, after which later had time for girls gamers accessible solely on Sundays.
“The way forward for golf should transfer towards inclusion,” Davis wrote within the e mail. “And I’m happy to report that the trustees and members of the Pine Valley Golf Membership voted unanimously and with enthusiasm to take away all gender-specific language from our bylaws.”
Davis stated the membership would instantly start the seek for certified ladies members with the hopes of getting its first in place by the tip of the yr.
“We’re merely persevering with down the trail of creating our membership extra inclusive,” Davis wrote. “We need to be happy with Pine Valley in all respects, and I’m satisfied this variation places us on the correct facet of historical past.”
Pine Valley, positioned on the New Jersey facet of Philadelphia within the city of Clementon, has lengthy been at or close to the highest of varied golf rankings. Golf Journal has had it ranked as its No. 1 course on the earth quite a few occasions since 1985. Golf Digest has seen it commerce locations amongst U.S. programs with Augusta Nationwide.
It was conceived by Philadelphia hotelier George Crump, who started work on the course in 1912 however died earlier than its opening in 1919.
“Pine Valley fills you with dread and delight … it takes your breath away, it is a monster but it surely’s stunning,” famed architect Robert Trent Jones as soon as wrote. “It’s regularly alluded to as essentially the most troublesome course on the earth, and this popularity is justified. To my mind-set, it additionally possesses extra traditional holes than another course on the earth.”
Jack Nicklaus performed the course for the primary time throughout his 1960 honeymoon — whereas his spouse, Barbara, waited exterior the gates.
“Barbara nonetheless would not consider that anybody who’d been round golf as a lot as I had by then wouldn’t know Pine Valley was for males solely,” Nicklaus wrote in his autobiography, “My Story.” “However it was the reality — I did not. When mates ask what I shot there that first time, I inform them 74, but it surely wasn’t a good check as a result of I used to be on my honeymoon.”
The membership modified its coverage for 2 days within the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist assaults and allowed the primary 100 folks with a $1,000 test to play the course, with all proceeds going to the Twin Towers Fund. The occasion proved so common that greater than $500,000 was raised.