New Jersey golf

My wife and I just came back from a week in NJ. We played resort golf at 4 different courses.

The first was at Ballyowen in northern NJ. We took advantage of the twilight rates and only paid about $50 rather than the regular day fee of about $125!!!!! Ballyowen was a nice course, not really long from the blues (about 6200 yards), and they enforce the ridiculous rule of all cartpaths all the time. What joke. I like to ride when on vacation (although I ride most of the time anyway), but to be forced to ride on the paths creates times when you might have a 150 yard walk to your ball. Who hits the ball right near the path all of the time? Granted, we could have walked, but "paths only" sucks. Here is an idea, paths on both sides of the fairway!! This course was a nice layout and the fairways were great (no carts), but the greens late in the day were pretty messed up--not worthy of the full price greens fee that is for sure. The coolest part was the bag-piper that played on the patio at 7pm. Very cool. I played fairly well, but again could not break 80. I did par the last 5 holes (17 and 18 played pretty much in the dark as we finished at around 9pm). One hole on the back (12?) was a short dogleg par 4 that featured a large granite out-cropping as a target line and a farmer's field that had a bunch of sheep in it. It was very Scottish looking. The next hole was a par four with a viscious bunker right in front of the elevated green. Of course I hit my approach into that same bunker and took two to get out (instant double). I liked this course quite a bit. The 10th hole was a downhill par 5 that I reached in two with a drive and a 4 iron. I did not hit my drive particularly well, but it cut the corner a bit and made the hole shorter than the card showed. I suspect that with a well struck drive on the same angle you could actually have about 6 or even 7 iron to the green. (Note: I of course 3 putted from about 60 feet for par)

The second course was right down the road from the first. Wild Turkey came highly recommended and right out of the box -- NO CART PATHS ONLY RULE!! This was a great course. The par 3's here were tremendous. One of them was 180 yds. over a huge quarry, all carry. Leave it short, and get wet after it crashed into the 100 foot high granite wall that stares you down from the tee. I cleared it with a 4 iron, and then managed to 3 jam it for a bogie. But, hey, I did not dump it in the quarry. Number 10 was another long par 3 (about 215) straight down hill. I crushed a 3 iron onto the green and two putted for par. The 17th was about 210 over a pond/lake. I hit 5 wood onto the green and made par. The other par 3 was about 180 again and I parred that one too. That is the best I have played the par 3's in a while. This course was longer and tougher than Ballyowen. Several holes wind around a swamp that sometimes allows a bear sighting (there was one in the early morning, but we did not see one). I would play here again in a heartbeat. We paid full price ($125) for this baby, but we were on vacation and we came to play. The clubhouse here was stunning and we had a great lunch when we were done. We went back for dinner the next day and that too was very good, no it was a great meal.