OCEAN CITY, Maryland — To grossly understate the fact, Ocean City is a popular destination. The town on the barrier island between the Atlantic Ocean and Sinepuxent Bay has about 6,850 residents who welcome, presumably, roughly 1,168 times that many visitors annually — some eight million, mostly in the summer, drawn to the 10-mile stretch of beach, the 2.5-mile-long boardwalk, a lively night scene and for golfers, 17 courses to choose from.
In truth, if you ran from one end of the boardwalk to the other and back, you’d chalk up your best 5-mile time, as the famous walkway is actually just shy of 2.5 miles. Ocean City dates its touristy life from the mid-1800’s, but particularly from 1875, when the original Atlantic Hotel opened on July 4. Soon after the area became known as “The Ladies’ Resort to the Ocean.” (A few years ago a new slogan was adopted: “Ocean City: Somewhere To Smile About,” although anglers also know it as “The White Marlin Capital of the World.”) The hotel was destroyed in the Great Ocean City Fire of 1925, but was rebuilt the next year and still exists, perched right off the boardwalk.
Now, if you did run from one end of the boardwalk to the other, you’d miss scores of chances to fill up on frozen custard, funnel cakes, caramel corn, salt water taffy, Thrasher’s fries with apple cider vinegar and any number of other diet-destroying treats. Or the chance to buy some hermit crabs or get tattooed or take a ride on a Ferris wheel or head to Ripley’s Believe It or Not! or play skee-ball or throw some coins in a busker’s guitar case or choose from a zillion funny t-shirts (all on sale, always). There is seemingly no end to the ways to keep eight million people full and amused down by the boardwalk.
A quieter retreat at the boardwalk’s south end is the Ocean City Life-Saving Station Museum. As well as displaying artifacts about the history of the town the museum is a tribute to the U.S. Life-Saving Service once housed in the building — which eventually evolved into the U.S. Coast Guard.
One of the features at the museum is a fascinating collection of 198 small dishes of sands from around the globe, in multi-colored hues from white to black. The white sand in the bunkers of most of the golf courses around Ocean City come from the Disney Sand and Gravel company, out of its quarry in nearby Hebron, Maryland. (Their slogan: “Simply the finest sand and gravel on the Eastern shore.”)
GOLF COURSE CICERONES
It could well be that the best way for a first-time visitor to learn about Ocean City is to join a threesome that made such a habit of traveling to the beach town that each of the trio wound up buying vacation homes in Ocean Pines, eight miles west. The three friends from Virginia — Joe Romagnoli, Mark Moore and Scott Tribbie — were all Sigma Nu fraternity brothers at Virginia Tech more than 40 years ago. Romagnoli has visited Ocean City since he was a kid.
Catching up to the three on the fourth hole of the Eagle’s Landing Golf Course was an effortless method of culling intel, on both the course and the town. Moore was a particular font of information: “Have lunch at Fager’s Island and grab a table by the water. You could try Seacrets at night — it’s usually a pretty wild time there. Head to the Harborside Bar & Grill at Sunset Marina for a drink [such as the original Orange Crush cocktail] and to watch the fishing and big money boats cruise by,” he says.
Duly noted.
Of the 17 area courses, Eagle’s Landing is often touted as the best. Assistant pro Mike Tritapoe would agree, though he also cited Lighthouse Sound, Rum Pointe, GlenRiddle’s 36 holes, “And the Ocean City Golf Course, also 36 holes, and one of the first here [from 1959]. But I hate to leave any out, because there really aren’t any bad ones,” he says.
Tritapoe should know. “The running jokes are that I’ve worked at ‘quite a few,’ ‘a bunch,’ ‘a lot,’ or that I can’t hold a job.” He’s worked at seven of the courses, so only 10 to go. “I came here in 1993 for a summer golf job, and I never left. It’s a perfect spot for golf, and groups are coming through all the time. It’s accessible, affordable, and the weather is great. The courses are open year-round, though peak season kicks off around St. Patrick’s day and runs roughly from April through October.”
The Links at Lighthouse Sound is an Arthur Hills design. If not quite a true links course it plays out over 1,000 mostly wide-open acres, a real nature walk, although you probably won’t walk it — the trip from the front bayside holes to the later marsh and riverside holes goes over what is said to be the country’s longest cart bridge, at 1,500 feet.
Gary Player contributed a signature design at River Run, a playable routing with amble bump and run opportunities. And Jack Nicklaus also did a signature design at Bayside Resort. It’s actually five miles away from Ocean City in Delaware, and is frequently cited as that state’s best. Rum Pointe is a father and son effort by Pete and P.B. Dye, but from this pair, a relatively easygoing links-style routing with a 122 slope rating from the 7,001-yards tips.
The clubhouse at GlenRiddle is the former main stable building of Riddle Farm, where such famous racehorses as Man o’ War and War Admiral were trained—and which happen to be the names of the two courses. The training racetrack is even incorporated into Man o’War’s design.
Eagle’s Landing was designed by Michael Hurdzan, always environmentally minded, and the course scored the first Audubon Sanctuary certification in the state. There are some eagle nests on property, but as Tribbie says, “In Ocean City the Osprey is king.”
If the course starts benignly, it begins to weave and wave through multiple salt marshes, ponds, tidal pools. The seventh is a par-5 that has a forced carry tee shot over a swamp, then another over a marsh on the third shot. Somehow it’s not the number one handicap hole. “We tell people to play everything as a lateral hazard,” says Tritapoe, “because Hurdzan designed it for people to have fun.” From the 6,306-yard Gold tees the slope is a reasonable 126.
The 17th is a lovely par-3 with a great view of Assateague Island. Then there’s the closing par-4 signature hole, called “The Beast of the East,” with a thin landing area from the tee, salt marshes on either side. It’s only a 322-yard poke from the mid-tees, but you have to dial back from driver to avoid a creek running across the fairway. The approach shot is reachable, if even a hit-the-green-or-else proposition.
It’s golf, so it will go one way or the other. But there’s always time to hit the boardwalk later and grab some of those apple cider vinegar fries.