Pine Valley Golf Club, long held in high esteem in the golfing community because of its architectural features and stern test to luxury players, is set to break from convention and allow women members for the very first time while at the same time striking all restrictions among women golfers now set up.
Both the Golf Magazine and Golf Digest websites reported that an email from team president Jim Davis was sent on Friday evening after an yearly meeting of trustees and members saying that the club had made a”historic shift.”
For decades, the club failed to permit women on the grounds, and then later had time for women players available only on Sundays.
“The future of golf must move toward inclusion,” Davis wrote in the mail. “And I am pleased to report that the trustees and members of the Pine Valley Golf Club voted unanimously and with excitement to eliminate all gender-specific language out of our bylaws.”
Davis said the team would immediately begin the hunt for qualified women members together with the hopes of getting its original set up at the close of the year.
“We are just continuing down the road of creating our team inclusive,” Davis wrote. “We want to be proud of Pine Valley in most respects, and I am convinced this change puts us on the ideal side of history”
Pine Valley, located on the New Jersey side of Philadelphia at the town of Clementon, has been at or close to the top of various golf rankings. Golf Magazine has it rated as its No. 1 class from the world numerous occasions since 1985. Golf Digest has seen it trade places among U.S. courses with Augusta National.
It had been conceived by Philadelphia hotelier George Crump, who started work on the path at 1912 but died before its opening in 1919.
“Pine Valley fills you with dread and delight… it takes away your breath, it is a creature but it’s beautiful,” celebrated architect Robert Trent Jones once wrote. “It is frequently called the most difficult course in the world, and this reputation is justified. To my way of thinking, in addition, it owns more classic holes than any other course in the world.”
“But it was the truth — I didn’t. When friends ask what I took that time, I inform them 74, but it was not a fair test because I was on my honeymoon”
The club changed its policy for two days in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and enabled the first 100 individuals with a $1,000 check to perform the course, together with all profits going to the Twin Towers Fund. The event proved so popular that over $500,000 was raised.
