Highlands

Somerset Hills Country Club's "Highlands" course carries one of the more storied names in New Jersey golf. Gladstone sits in the rolling Raritan Valley at the foot of the Watchung Mountains, and the terrain here is legitimately dramatic — elevation changes, mature hardwoods, and a landscape that shifts with the seasons in ways that genuinely affect how the course plays from week to week.

Somerset Hills itself has a distinguished history, with A.W. Tillinghast among the architects associated with the club's design legacy. That pedigree shows in a layout that rewards strategic thinking over raw power, with angles and green complexes that ask questions a first-time player won't always answer correctly.

The surrounding area — horse country, old money, quiet roads winding through preserved farmland — gives the place a particular atmosphere that's become rare even in New Jersey's crowded golf market. This is a private club experience rooted in tradition, where the course has been shaped over generations rather than manufactured all at once.