The New Course of Aldecress (Alpine CC)
By H.E. Worden, October 1933

Among the hundreds of golf courses that I have designed and constructed, Aldecress was by far the toughest course to build that I ever encountered.

When we built the course at Aldecress, Bergen County of northern New Jersey, there came to my observation a relic of Revolutionary days. Close by the Aldecress course runs the old Closter Dock Road, and it was along this highway that General Howe led his British forces toward Trenton after crossing the Hudson. Evidently he must have tarried her for a while, at least sufficiently long to execute two patriots. On this lane, which leads to the first teeing ground of Aldecress, is the stone foundation of an old building. There had stood the Closter grist mill of the “patriot Miller Demarest.” On the 11th of May, 1779, the mill was burned by Howe’s troops and the miller’s two sons, Cornelius and Hancomb, were shot by a firing squad.

Several years ago a notable coterie of gentlemen, residents of Bergen County in northern New Jersey, determined to build a golf course. I believe there were some thirty who pledged more than a million dollars to purchase property and develop the course. Particularly active in this group were Charles G. DuBois, Thomas W. Lamont, Senator E.W. Wakelee, Seward Prosser, A.L. Lindley, C.V. Messerole, W.B. Scarborough, M.E. Rionda, and the late Senator Dwight Morrow. Such men, so prominent in the worlds of finance and state, of course, were qualified to finish anything they started and Aldecress stands today as a monument to their love of golf and its best traditions.

It was my privilege as construction superintendent for A. W. Tillinghast, the architect of the course, to be in intimate daily, yes hourly contact with this work for two years, and so tremendous was the work that it required this length of time to carve the holes out of the woods and swamp-holes, but the rock was the element that battled us through two years before the course was ready to play. That rock was omni-present is not surprising when we are acquainted with the fact that the Palisades of the Hudson River are quite near. The name, Aldecress, is a composite word taken from the three townships which embrace the course, Alpine, Demarest and Cresskill.

New Course at Aldecress (Alpine Country Club).

The enormity of this construction job made system of unusual importance. A field office was established, a timekeeper employed, and a time-clock punched each morning and evening as the workmen got their equipment and checked back with it. A large camp was operated with a commissary department. More than thirty tractors were in constant use — rock, rock and more rock!

The first year brought us unseasonable and steady rains. The second was so dry that the tractor drivers were so coated with dust as to look like ghosts. The unusual number of tractors was made necessary because of the tremendous amount of rock which had to be moved. Much of the fairway actually was contoured into huge, natural-looking undulations by piling the rock and covering it well with soil. Thousands of yards of cinders, manure and peat moss were worked into the fairway soil. Today, Aldecress shows no evidence of any artificial construction.

I think the greens are the most pleasing I ever have seen, imposing yet of pleasing simplicity. Each has its rock foundation and several were built entirely of assembled stones before the soil was drawn over in ample measure. Even the approaches to the greens were contoured as ingeniously as the greens themselves. This new course is a great one.

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