Montclair Golf Club

Few private clubs in the New York metropolitan area carry the institutional weight of Montclair Golf Club. Founded in 1893, it ranks among the oldest golf clubs in New Jersey, and its long membership history reflects the deep-rooted golf culture of Essex County — a region that has produced a surprising concentration of distinguished private clubs within a short drive of Manhattan.

The course occupies the rolling, wooded terrain of the Watchung Ridge, and that topography shapes everything about how it plays. Elevation changes are genuine rather than decorative, demanding shotmaking decisions that flat-country golf rarely requires. At par 70, the routing asks players to score with precision rather than power — a hallmark of courses designed around this kind of naturally contoured land.

West Orange itself sits at the edge of the Essex County reservation system, one of the largest county park networks in the country, and the mature tree canopy surrounding the club gives it a removed, unhurried quality that belies its proximity to one of the world's great urban centers.