18 New England Holes to Remember

It’s not that these are the best holes in New England, or the hardest, or the prettiest, though some certainly are. These holes are here because as golfers we’ve all taken something from them and left something of ourselves between their tees and greens. These holes have challenged us, cajoled us, awed us. They’ve filled our personal scorecards with memories.
 

The Course at Yale
Hole 9, par 3, 235 yards
New Haven, Connecticut (203-432-0895)
www.yalegolfcourse.com

This is the signature hole of the oldest university golf course in America. The tee sits a dizzying 60 feet above Greist Pond, which extends to the green. Once, in my undergraduate days, I tackled this hole at night. I sneaked onto the course, headed up to the tee with Day-Glo balls, then launched drive after drive over the pond. I’d follow their arcs like tracer rockets, then close my eyes, hoping to hear, after what seemed like an eternity, a thud (as they hit the green) rather than a splash.
It’s been said that Yale’s course offers 18 good reasons for the timid golfer to enroll
at Harvard.
– Colin Sheehan
Colin Sheehan, once a varsity golfer at Yale, is a senior editor at The Golfer.

 

Cape Arundel Golf Club
Hole 13, par 3, 165 yards
Kennebunkport, Maine (207-967-3494)
www.capearundelgolfclub.com

At high tide, especially in the fall and spring, this hole is unparalleled beauty. At low tide you see menacing flats that gobble up golf balls. At high tide you see fresh flowing salt water that makes the hole seem longer. I have happy memories of watching Couples (who holds the course record of 62), Olazabal, Palmer, and Irwin playing this hole, but also memories of family games. My grandfather Walker and my own dad, the former president of the USGA, loved this course—and loved the challenge of 13.
– George H. W. Bush
The 41st president of the United States owns a home in Kennebunkport.
 

Highland Links
Hole 2, par 5, 460 yards
North Truro, Massachusetts (508-487-9201)

It’s the rigorous par 5 second that concerns us here. From the elevated tee, hit into the valley, dogleg left. Be straight or you’ll rest in the cranberry vines and foot-high heath that straddle the narrow fairway—200 yards will set you up nicely. Heavy hitters reach the green in two, but most lay up below the traps. An accurate wedge and you’re on your way to, at least, a makable par. The course overall is a gem, with its old-world scenery: the scruffy landscape, the natural terrain, the ever-present ocean. But what the great Atlantic giveth, it also taketh away. So keep your spirits up, your head down, and replace all divots: The shore is eroding at the rate of three feet a year.
– David Gibson
David Gibson is a freelance writer.
 

The Golf Club (formerly Gleneagles Golf) at the Equinox
Hole 13, par 4, 423 yards
Manchester Village, Vermont (800-362-4747)
www.playequinox.com

The great Ben Hogan has pronounced this “the best 13th hole in America.” It’s also a snake pit. The architects apparently went heavy on the explosives when they cut the plateau’d green from its mountainside—and also blew to bits the hillside to the right of the green. They kept the residue (60 feet deep) as a grass bunker. The grounds crew mows this bunker only a few times a season, which can leave errant approach shots suspended on the vertical face. Since “playing where it lies” would require crampons and ropes, the prudent play is no play at all. Just take a stroke and a drop. But for all the frustration, a reward awaits when you get to the terraced green and look back toward the 13th tee. The promontory offers one of the most splendid panoramas in golf: Beyond trees and fairways, the towering spire of Manchester’s First Congregational Church soars against a Green Mountain backdrop.
– Jeff Silverman
Jeff Silverman’s latest books are The Greatest Golf Stories Ever Told and The Greatest Baseball Stories Ever Told (both published by Lyons Press, 2001; $24.95).
 

Farm Neck Golf Club
Hole 1, par 4, 409 yards
Oak Bluffs, Massachusetts (508-693-3057)

The first time I played Farm Neck I watched my tee shot hook past the velvet fairway, sail over the pines, and land deep in the Vineyard woods. And I smiled. I didn’t intend to lose a bunch of balls on the front nine, but I immediately saw a silver lining. Bill Clinton, then president, would be playing the course in a couple of days. He loved Farm Neck. He also loved the fact that being president meant there was always time for a Mulligan or two (or three). So perhaps he would never have to wade into the Farm Neck woods after one of his tee shots. But if he did—and this was the silver lining—perhaps he would find one of the errant shots I’d left behind using novelty balls with his photo on them and the words “Good Lie Guaranteed.” Clinton is beloved on this island by everyone, it seems, but me. I lost a lot of balls that day. And smiled every time.
– Scott Kaufer
Scott Kaufer, whose TV credits include Murphy Brown, The X-Files, and Arli$$, has been a summer regular on the Vineyard since the 1980s.
 

D. Fairchild Wheeler Golf Course
(Red Course)
Hole 9, par 4, 406 yards
Fairfield, Connecticut (203-373-5911)

A vast canyon drops away in front of the tee box. A wall of trees looms to the left. Beyond the creek at the bottom, a hillside also rises and slopes to the left. Golfer beware: You’ll have to hit dead straight to a small landing area at the top. Can you carry the ball 250 yards with a refined draw? Many think they can. But over the years I’ve watched them rip madly at the ball, generally resulting in a yank into the trees to the left or a roundhouse slice to the right. Every course should have a hole like this.
– Chris Hodenfield
Chris Hodenfield is a freelance writer.

Rhode Island Country Club
(private)
Hole 17, par 3, 145 yards
Barrington, Rhode Island (401-245-5700)
www.ricc.org

This short par 3, with a lighthouse on Narragansett Bay as a backdrop, is a Donald Ross gem. The two-tiered green, surrounded by bunkers, offers a number of tough pin placements, and its length is deceptive because of the southwesterly winds off the water. Depending on those winds, I’ve hit low four irons into the breeze or just a soft little wedge to the green. It’s the first par 3 I ever reached in one shot as a youngster.
– Brad Faxon
Brad Faxon of Barrington has eight PGA Tour victories.

 

Kebo Valley Golf Club
Hole 18, par 4, 346 yards
Bar Harbor, Maine (207-288-3000)
www.kebovalleyclub.com

In 1944 Kebo’s board held a fund-raiser. For $1,000, select members could commemorate themselves on plaques embedded in mini-boulders at each tee box. The honor at 18 was taken by longtime member Edsel Ford—and a motoring motif pervades this hole. The plaque and back tee are located on one side of Cromwell Harbor Road, while the narrow fairway, with trees to the left and bunkers to the right, rolls out across and beyond the two-lane highway. Before teeing off, a golfer must look both ways to make sure the drive doesn’t collide with someone’s driving, and someone’s driving doesn’t collide with the drive.
– Jeff Silverman
 

Portsmouth Country Club
Hole 14, par 5, 525 yards
Greenland, New Hampshire (603-436-9719)
www.portsmouthcc.net

Portsmouth is where I was weaned as a golfer, and the 14th is its most beautiful hole—and its biggest test. It’s a dogleg left, with the green jutting out into Great Bay on almost three sides. When the pin is back left, the green is long and narrow and looks about a foot wide for your approach shot. You can try to get there in two, but with the ever-present wind you risk a severe dunking. Water, in fact, comes into play on your first, second, and third shots, and will even be a factor around the green if you wind up in one of the bunkers and skull your bunker shot. With wind usually blowing in your face or across your front, you learn to keep the ball low. When I’ve hosted charity tournaments on this course, the pros always comment, “No wonder you can play in the wind. You grew up on
this monster.”
– Jane Blalock
Jane Blalock won nearly 30 LPGA tournaments during her career.

 

Stratton Mountain Country Club
(“Mountain Course”)
Hole 5, par 5, 621 yards
Stratton Mountain, Vermont (800-Stratton)
www.stratton.com

When it comes to golf, my son Nick is volatile like me and grossly competitive like his father. A good shot inspires exquisite end zone dances and camaraderie. A bad shot, and he is a club-flinging embarrassment. Then came the fifth hole at Stratton’s Mountain Course—a long, straight trough. Nick played it horribly. I girded myself against the inevitable: Nick pitching a fit, me trying to prop up his mood, and both of us, frazzled and grouchy, bombing the next few holes. But nothing happened. As much as Nick chunked and donged his way along the course, he never lost it. He even made a joke—and a statement worthy of the pro tour. “It’s okay, Mom,” he said, “I’m not going to freak out anymore. It makes the game way too hard.”
– Pippin Ross
Pippin Ross is a freelance writer and broadcast journalist with National Public Radio.
 

Taconic Golf Club
Hole 4, par 4, 358 yards
Williamstown, Massachusetts (413-458-3997)

It’s easy to let down your guard at a course where the scorecards dispense advice for playing each hole—in Latin—and there’s a sight gag you’ll pass on your way to the green. But stay focused. Your tee shot is over a pond, which shouldn’t come into play—it’s just there to plant a doubt that it could. The green, tucked across a brook a slight dogleg to the left, is guarded by an enormous willow about 100 yards from its heart, so deposit your ball in the middle of the fairway, or slightly left, within flirting range of the 150-yard marker. Anything beyond that, or to the right, puts the willow between you and the hole. If your tee shot’s found the right resting place, the approach looks easy. But don’t be fooled. The green is guarded by a steep false front (land so much as an inch short, and the joke’s on you). Want to make par here? Follow Ovid’s scorecard advice: Medio tutissimus ibis—“You will travel safest in a middle course.” And ignore the suggestion box in the middle of the pond.
– Jeff Silverman
 

The Kittansett Club (private)
Hole 3, par 3, 165 yards
Marion, Massachusetts (508-748-0148)

This plateau green is the ultimate in target golf. At 165 yards, it’s not length that intimidates, but psychology. From the exposed tee, the options are simple: Find a haven on the green or see your ball in Buzzard’s Bay or in the sandy lie of the beach. While the mind may work a mile a minute to take in all that’s required of the stroke, the eye appreciates the amazing beauty of the surrounds. For a man who designed only one golf course in his lifetime, Frederick Hood seized the opportunity that land and water gave him—and the results are simply perfect. When my firm was hired to renovate this course, there was nothing I could do to improve No. 3. Best not to mess with perfection.
– Gil Hanse
Gil Hanse is the head of Hanse Golf Course Design.
 

Newport Country Club (private)
Hole 9, par 4, 448 yards
Newport, Rhode Island

This is, by any standard, a superb test of golf. For starters, there’s a gaping maw of a cross bunker on the right, about 225 yards from the tee. When you’re young and daring, it’s no big deal; you grip it and rip it and fly over with ease. In midlife, especially after three-putting No. 8, you load your backswing with prayer and hope to clear it. On the green, more challenges await, not the least of which is the hole’s concentration-breaking vista to the sea. A few years ago I was standing over a gimme that wasn’t given when, out of the corner of my eye, I caught the sails of a tall ship breezing into the Atlantic. It so startled me, I found myself, to my non-gimme-granter’s glee, facing a knee-knocking five-footer coming back.
– Jeff Silverman
 

Cape Ann Golf Club
Hole 13, par 3, 165 yards
Essex, Massachusetts (978-768-7544)

This hole won’t make anybody’s “must-play” list, but it ranks near the top of mine. Up you hoof to the windy summit of a knoll to encounter a view of five surrounding communities, including Hogg Island and the great barrier beaches off Ipswich. The hole plunges dramatically downhill, sweeping gracefully left, a classic 5-par that can turn ugly if you hook your sphere into the marsh—the Land of No Return. In 20 or so attempts I never could quite reach, in one fell swat, the bent grass that promised an easy eagle—or perhaps something better. But I did catch the ball perfectly several times, drawing it along the spine of the ridge, leaving myself a mere 70-yard pitch to the putting surface. The nine-hole course, which recently celebrated its 70th year, costs about forty bucks for two loops on a busy summer weekend, making it one of the Bay State’s greatest golf bargains.
– James Dodson
James Dodson won the Golf Writers of America Award in 1996.
 

Amesbury Golf and Country Club
Hole 6, par 4, 340 yards
Amesbury, Massachusetts (978-388-5153)
www.amesburycountryclub.com

Golf holes have a knack for inspiring curses, not verses, but Amesbury’s No. 6 is an exception. So what if John Greenleaf Whittier composed “The Fountain” three-quarters of a century before architect Wayne Stiles actually plotted the course? The state’s beloved poet was surely onto something golf-related when he set out to extol the clear water gushing from the roots of a cherry tree—long gone—just short and left of what would become the sixth green. A dogleg right, No. 6 demands a precise drive and a precise approach. Both shots flirt with ponds, but don’t panic. As Whittier described it, the waters here are capable of turning “moody sadness” into a “gleam of gladness.”
– Jeff Silverman
 

The Balsams Grand Resort Hotel
(Panorama Course)
Hole 14, par 3, 212 yards
Dixville Notch, New Hampshire (603-255-4961)
www.thebalsams.com

Though I wasn’t even seasoned enough to be called a duffer, I decided to test my game against the championship course at The Balsams, ranked among the top golf resorts in the Northeast. The Scotsman Donald Ross designed it in 1912, and surely he felt a twang of homesickness in this hilly terrain. True to its name, the Panorama, from any given hole, looks off to the farmlands of New Hampshire and Vermont and, more distant, the blue wedges of Canada. I’d been told that the 11th and the 18th holes are favorites here. But it was the 14th that drew my rave. Not because of the layout or the view or the placement of the traps—but because I made par. I like to think Ross put this one in here for those of us who need a boost in their golf morale.
– Edie Clark
Edie Clark is a longtime writer for Yankee Magazine.
 

Ekwanok Country Club (private)
Hole 7, par 5, 597 yards
Manchester, Vermont (802-362-1774)

Imagine a golf hole with Mount Everest in the middle. Covered with thick, ball-
swallowing fescue and a malicious trio of bunkers, Ekwanok’s No. 7, known as Saddleback, extends from rough to rough, with no way around. You have to hit over it from a fairway valley—an intimidating crest of more than 40 feet, 320 yards down range. In the 103 years since Walter Travis conceived this course, no one’s reached the green in two from the tips. Of course, Tiger Woods hasn’t played here yet, but head pro John Lombardy thinks Tiger would be as stymied as the next guy.
– Jeff Silverman
 

The Country Club
(Championship Course) (private)
Hole 17, par 4, 381 yards
Brookline, Massachusetts
www.tcclub.org

As I knelt beside the 17th green, my heart was pounding. I rested my arm on one knee and waited as Justin Leonard lined up his putt. Everything was in slow motion. Moments came flooding back. I thought about this green and everything that had come to pass here. About Francis Ouimet and his house that was a pitching wedge away from where I was kneeling. About the 1913 U.S. Open, when Ouimet, a 19-year-old caddie and part-time sporting goods salesman, beat the best players in the game—Harry Vardon and Ted Ray—in a playoff that awakened the game in America. About the 20-foot downhill putt for birdie that forced the playoff. About the birdie at that same hole the following day that gave Ouimet the title and changed the face of the game.
It was so ironic, so fitting, that it would come down to this moment on this green. The place where a rich man’s game had in one magic moment become a game for everyone; a stage today for what could be the greatest comeback in the history of the Ryder Cup. My gosh. If Justin can just halve this match, we’re going to win the Ryder Cup ... I saw Justin lining up his putt and hitting it. The ball was moving fast. Too fast? It crested the hill, then about eight feet from the hole I thought it had a chance. The next thing I knew, it just dove right in the hole. When that putt went in, we erupted.
– Ben Crenshaw
Adapted, with permission, from Crenshaw’s biography A Feel for the Game: To Brookline and Back (Doubleday, 2001; $24.95).