Shore Gate

Shore Gate Golf Club’s 18-hole course lies on the Jersey Shore between Atlantic City and Cape May. There’s a pleasing mix of parkland and links-style holes on the layout and a fair amount of water to avoid as fairways wind around seven lakes on the property. A David Dale and Ron Fream of Golfplan production, the course was the first East Coast design for the company, opening for play in 2002.

In the book Golf’s Best New Destinations by Brian McCallen, the author gives this insight into the construction of the course: “In 2001, Ron Fream made a detour to Ocean View, a small community 30 minutes south of Atlantic City, where the Turner family, owners of a nearby campground, asked him to have a look at their 245-acre parcel. Won over by the designer’s enthusiasm, they quickly hired Fream to build Shore Gate Golf Club on land that was beach and dunes eons ago.

“After massaging the site, one of the highest points in Cape May County, with bulldozers to displace 450,000 cubic yards of sand – this after noting sun angles and shadow patterns – Fream produced the boldest and most extroverted layout imaginable, a dynamic, visually intimidating world-beater. Fream flashed sand up the sides of tall vertical mounds at several holes to create the impression of incoming sea waves. There are eighty-eight formal bunkers on the course, plus seven ponds, but it’s the fescue-fringed waste areas and sand-flashed mounds that scream Watch out!”.

Feature holes include a couple of lengthy par fives on the front nine at the 589-yard 6th and 648-yard 9th: the former sweeps slightly right towards the green with the latter doglegging left, around a sizeable water hazard.

On the back nine, “The Trilogy” of holes begins at the par five 13th, with the fairway kinking left past large sandy waste areas to the target. It’s followed by a 144-yard par three, where seven large bunkers circle the green. The par four 15th then concludes this little tough stretch of holes as the fairways veers right towards the green, water running along the inside of the dogleg.