Town Guides / Maryland

The Berlin Golf Guide

Berlin is the small town golfers pass through on the way to Ocean City and mostly fail to notice, which is a mistake, because two of the best stories in Maryland golf sit in its orbit. Glen Riddle Golf Club occupies the farm where Man o' War and War Admiral trained. Rum Pointe is a Pete and P.B. Dye course on the bay. A town where a Triple Crown winner's farm became a golf club and the Dyes built a Scottish style course facing the water does not need to sell itself hard. It just needs golfers to slow down.

Rum Pointe: play it first

Rum Pointe Seaside Golf Links is the headline course and should be your first round. Pete and P.B. Dye designed it in 1997, hired to create a top level course while preserving the Rackliffe farm property. The result is a Scottish style layout where 17 of 18 holes have bay views and several sit directly on the bay frontage. In Maryland, that ratio of water views to holes is close to unmatched, and the Dyes kept the course tied to its ground. The Ruark family transferred 100 acres to the Park Service in 1994 and placed the rest in a conservation easement that allowed only a golf course, so the land around Rum Pointe will stay as open as it feels. Rackliffe House, a pre Revolutionary War dwelling on the property, has been restored and is open to the public, which gives the place a layer of history most resort courses fabricate.

The golf plays on bentgrass fairways and greens, a surface choice that suits the seaside style and gives the course a different feel from the Bermuda and overseeded layouts golfers expect near the coast. It is public, at 7000 Rum Pointe Lane. Book it early in the trip, in the morning if you can, when the bay is calmest and the light does the course favors.

Glen Riddle and River Run

Glen Riddle carries the horse racing story. The farm where Man o' War and War Admiral trained became a golf club, and even golfers who know nothing about racing feel the weight of that when it is explained on the first tee. Play it for the ground it occupies as much as the golf, and give the story its due. Not every course gets to stand on land that mattered before golf arrived.

River Run Golf Club is the third leg, a Gary Player design from 1989 that works through a residential community, semi private, par 71 at 6,705 yards from the back tees. The signature hole is the 13th, a par 4 whose approach must carry marshland to a shallow green. That approach is the shot of the round. A shallow green beyond a marsh carry gives you no safe depth to play with, so the yardage has to be right, not close. Local directories have priced River Run in the $67 to $80 range, which makes it the value play of the three and a sensible second round on a two course day or the anchor of a budget trip.

How to do Berlin right

Play Rum Pointe first while you are fresh, because the Dye course asks the most questions. Then Glen Riddle for the history, then River Run with the 13th waiting in the middle of the back nine. The common visitor mistake is treating Berlin as an Ocean City overflow option and rushing in for a single round. These three courses sit on Maryland's Eastern Shore in Worcester County, close enough to combine easily, and the town itself is worth the evening after the golf.

For the town's course by course order, see our Berlin town ranking, and for where these courses sit in the state, the Maryland state ranking.

A Triple Crown farm, a Dye course on the bay, and a Player design with a marsh between you and the green. Berlin is a small town that punches well above its size, and the drive home past Ocean City traffic is when most golfers realize they had it backwards all along.