Celebrating 60: Hominy Hill Golf Course

Hominy Hill Golf Course (1983)

In 1965, when Henry Dickson Mercer, Sr., built Hominy Hill Golf Course, it became one of New Jersey's most exclusive private golf courses. Mr. Mercer was president of the States Marine Corporation shipping company and lived in Rumson. He had purchased several farms in Colts Neck in 1941 to raise prize-winning herds of Guernsey cattle, eventually accumulating 411 acres and named his land Hominy Hill Farm after the Manhomoney Hills, the historic name for a grouping of small hills in Colts Neck. 

In 1963, Mr. Mercer commissioned famed golf course architect, Robert Trent Jones, Sr., to convert 180 acres of the farm into an 18-hole golf course for entertaining his foreign business contacts. Jones was known for designing and redesigning hundreds of challenging courses during his seven-decade career under the philosophy that golfers had to earn their rewards through high achievement. Mr. Mercer directed Jones to spare no expense in making Hominy Hill a championship-quality golf course. Jones laid out a long par 72 course measuring 7,120 yards and installed 138 bunkers to challenge golfers, as well as incorporated tributaries of the Mine Brook that runs through the rolling landscape as water hazards on several holes.

Hominy Hill Clubhouse

Architect Derrick Kipp was hired to convert the farm’s large dairy barn into a clubhouse with locker rooms and an informal restaurant with seating for 60 people on the ground floor. He turned the enormous hayloft into a formal restaurant with seating for 125 people and a large kitchen. In spite of its lavish features and meticulous care, few people actually got the opportunity to play golf at Hominy Hill. Mr. Mercer occasionally opened the course to charity events, but otherwise golfers played there only by invitation. He missed seeing cattle on the remaining portion of the farm, and he started a purebred Charolais beef cattle herd there. 

In 1975, the Mercer family decided to put the course up for sale and made a verbal agreement to sell it to the County. The Mercers resisted offers from developers to purchase the course at a higher price during the 18 months it took for the Park System to secure a Green Acres matching grant for the acquisition. While some were concerned the Park System would not be able to maintain Hominy Hill at the level of quality that the Mercers had achieved, the popularity of the course since its acquisition has long silenced any skeptics. It has been named by NJ.com and Inside Jersey as one of New Jersey's "10 Best Golf Courses for the Money," and has been voted the "Best Public Golf Course" in the state by New Jersey Monthly magazine's readers.

For more information about Hominy Hill Golf Course, visit us on the web.

Historic details for this post were collected from The Monmouth County Park System: The First Fifty Years.