With a teebox in the middle of a marsh, this is a difficult teeshot with a forced carry of 160 yards and dogleg not coming until 225 yards. This green is large, two-tiered and guarded by deep bunkers on either side. So now we were faced with a 23o yard tee shot into the wind, with a very tricky green. During their annual 4-Ball Tournament I got my first hole-in-one on #3. At a prodigious 220 yards, this is a semi-blind par 3 courtesy of tall fescue directly in front of the teebox. Par is a great score here. As I mentioned, I expected the whole course to be like this, but I enjoyed the changing environment throughout which weaves from open seaside, into the coastal forest, and back out again to finish the round. Briggs worked well with the facilities personnel at both those private entities, he said. That prompted us to restore them to their original sizes. It only took a minute, but from the moment I arrived, I knew I was going to like this place. The New England ground produced glacial stone and Hood built mounds to cover these huge boulders. Sean, great article! As a testament to Kittansetts difficulty, not one player broke par in a 1996 U.S. More often the cross hazards come earlier in the golf hole. Unlock All Content, Become A Subscriber Today. And in 2016, Murray threw fans cell phones off the roof of a second-story restaurant in Carmel, Calif., after they snapped photos of the actor, according to TMZ. Cushing and Dickerson agreed that they would discuss the ethics matter publicly at the May 21 Selectmens meeting. Sean Ogle helps people build businesses they can run from anywhere in the world. True All Day Pants Review: Damn Good (Golf) Pants. The approach here is fairly straightforward with bunkers on either side about 60 yards short of this green and three guarding both sides of the green. Briggs appointment to Marion Conservation Commission expires June 30, 2015. Keep it up! He reported the matter to the referee, USGA Treasurer Charles Pierson, who in turn consulted with USGA Vice President Ike Grainger. Truth be told, there was little overarching drama to the competition itself; the U.S. squad won easily, 9-3, securing its 13th victory in 14 tries. This fairway bends slightly to the left with marshes on either side. The course held the Walker Cup in 1953, and most recently held the US Senior Amateur in September 2022. Change), You are commenting using your Facebook account. This green generally slopes back-to-front. The eye-catching hazard sits well short of a flamboyant green cleaved by a deep swale but all this is obscured by the bunkers 7 foot lip. This green is relatively flat, but plays elevated with slopes on all sides. Ive heard that before the trees were removed you could be standing on 16 and 17, which come back towards the water on 3, and you wouldnt even be able to see the bay. The course layout originated and concluded at the unprotected ocean end of the Point. Rolling down Point Road toward The Kittansett Club, past Sippican Harbor and passing before an ever more stately line of summer cottages (all in gray shingle), the ancient course comes into view through the drivers side window initially a hole or two bounded by Cape-style miniature pine, but then a striking, open expanse punctuated by golden fescues, lines of bracken hedgerows and chocolate-drop mounding. Kittansett is the only golf course on Hoods resume; he never designed nor built another. Marion, MA. But the fact is, we hate losing. There are a number of very good golf holes with interesting routing, and a beautiful setting. Kittansett was built in the 1920s and juts out on a peninsula directly into Buzzards Bay in Marion, Massachusetts outside of Boston. Tucked away in a sort of nether region between Cape Cod and the Rhode Island coast, its widely acknowledged as the second best course in Massachusetts (behind TCC in Brookline) though few have actually played it. The two that stand sentinel on either side of the somewhat lunar 16th fairway appear to frame the target but are actually 50 yards short of the green, seriously messing with a visitings depth perception. He and Urzetta easily won their foursomes match and the San Franciscan breezed past a beleaguered James Wilson in singles, 9 and 8; Venturis outward round of level-par 70 was the competitions lowest. MARION, MASSACHUSETTS | Competitors in last weeks Massachusetts Amateur had the pleasure of playing one of the Bay States best golf courses at the Kittansett Club. The 7th is one of three par 5s on the course, and the bunkering on this hole I found to be notable and forces you to really place your 3 shots well. The Kittansett Club opens with the two longest par fours on the course. Some of that credit goes to Hanse who recommended some serious tree clearing when he first refurbished the bunkers in 1995 (adding fescued eyelashes to each one, a perfect fit). We also raised some of the sand faces so they were easier to see and more impressive visually. These include the Massachusetts Amateur Championship in 1958, 1978, 1990, 1999, 2008 and 2020 and the WGAM Edith Noblit Baker Trophy in 1954, 1979, 1989, 1995, 2005 and 2015. Thats absolutely wild to think about, and it makes you glad the membership voted to take a chance and go ahead with the removal. The first thing I noticed was that the golf course had become overgrown and had suffered from what can best be described as benign neglect, said Hanse. Its easy to see why the course is consistently rated among the best in the country. . 12 is a fantastic hole that is simplynotone that favors my game. The 15th is the second of the trio of par 5s on the course. The underdog British might have hoped for a some of their weather to level the playing field. Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window), Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window), Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window). Had the fortune of playing We-Ko-Pas Saguaro Course last Spring, the first round for me in Arizona. Relative to par, Im not sure theres a more difficult hole than the 11th. Generation Zero Now Available for Purchase, Late-Nineties Flashback: The Great Maine Golf Course Binge, In Iceland, It Truly Is a Matter of Degree, Generation Zero:The modern Creation epic U.S. soccer didnt know it had, available July 19, Forty-Eight Years Late: Celts, Dubs Redeem an NBA Final That Never Was. Originally only open to high rollers like Shadow Creek, Cascata is now fully public but doesnt receive much play and commands a hefty $400+ pricetag. The course feels quite natural but was in fact designed to within an inch of its life by one Frederic Hood, who had consulted with Donald Ross and worked from some drawings provided by William Flynn. 32% of Kittansett Club employees are women, while 68% are men. This hole is notable for a creek that crosses the fairway at 285 yards and bunker just short right of the creek. One involved pulling stones from the ground, and the other determining what to do with them once they were unearthed. Finally, in March of this year, while Briggs was on a motorcycling vacation in Florida, he got a call from his attorney saying the Ethics Commission was ready to sign an agreement to resolve the matter. Sure enough, in the early 2000s plans for the course were found in William Flynns attic. About 30 yards short of the green, two cross-bunkers squeeze the fairway, preventing runners from reaching the green. Marion Town Administrator Paul Dawson noted at the Selectmens May 7 meeting that Briggs had not submitted a letter of resignation, and he asked Selectmen how to proceed or if the board has an appetite for removal.. State Ethics Commission Executive Director Karen Nober gave Briggs two weeks from the March 5 offer to get back to Ethics Commission or face up to a $50,000 fine. Designed by myThem.es. This is a great closing match play par 5 where birdies will fly. Kittansett members have the good sense to know that big tournaments and their attendant crowds would overwhelm their little slice of heaven, even if the competitors most assuredly would not. Flynn placed two devilish bunkers on both corners of the dogleg that more-or-less force the golfer to hit a drive between 220 and 250 yards. Events like these culled a few tupelos, to be sure. When golfs luminaries gathered in September on this lovely seaside ground just south of the Cape Cod Canal, the prize at stake had become The Walker Cup, forever and always. Kittansett seems tailor-made for a national mid-amateur championship, and while Demmer hinted that the subject has been broached presumably with the folks who famously value par there are no plans. The Country Club is definitely Massachusetts' best course and then it is a battle among Kittansett, Boston Golf Club, and Old Sandwich as the state's next best track. Before coming to Kittansett, I was expecting the course to be much more open than it is. A cross bunker comes into play from the left on tee shots, and the best move is taking on that hazard with ones drive, keeping the ball on that side of the fairway for a more open approach to the green. This is certainly one of the easier holes out there and one of several holes on the course that provides the golfer numerous options. The right corner of the dogleg is lined by deep bunkers while a hidden pond guards the left. Hard to believe this green would have sitting under 8 feet of water at one point. You have a recipe for a special place, and one Ive always personally been excited to see. This approach plays to a large, flat green lined by bunkers on either side. The land provided well-drained and unusually fine fairways and greens. We were hosting an Eighty Club event at Old Sandwich and Boston Golf Club, and I tacked on an extra day to the trip to make the journey out to Marion and experience a course Ive been excited about visiting for years. The opening hole at Kittansett is tied for the longest par 4 on the course at 415 yards. And we restored a handful of bunkers that had been filled in as we reclaimed parts of several greens that had become smaller as well.. Oh, and while he's traveling around doing that, he also golfs as much as humanly possible in his quest to break eighty for the first time ever. The tee shot on the par 4, 5th is one of the most intimidating on the course with two big bunkers in the middle of the fairway to contend with and wetlands all down the right. The 47 year old from Washington state the sitting U.S. Most publications focus on the world-class seaside holes, but I thought the inland holes were almost equally as good, resembling the great heathland courses in England with their sandy soil, whispy fescue, and tall trees. Named after the Native American term for near the sea, Kittansett opened in 1922, and Hood tinkered with the design for the next several decades. Sign Up For Our Free Weekly Digital Magazine! You should have done this a long time ago. The maps on this site are based on Cesium which in turn is based on WebGL. Off the tee, to be sure, and on approach shots. The name is interesting as its a combination of two Native American words meaning near the sea.. Even got a prom pic. Its most celebrated hole is the par-3 third, where a well-contoured, slightly elevated green is surrounded entirely by sand and bordered on the right by the bay. Donations to this. This keeps the vibe more chill and low-key, and really allows you to soak in the wonderful setting on the Bay. In light of the recent state Board of Ethics ruling against Sherman Briggs, I request that you send a message to the other town boards that this is not acceptable behavior, and that if you engage in this type of behavior you will be removed. In other cases, its much more prominent, as youll find on 10. But considering, again, there was no water in sight, I had a feeling a still had a little ways to go (The GPS sends you to the halfway house after the 9th hole). I cant imagine what it would be like if the breeze was up even more. Try and clear the bunker on the corner and take on the trees. They are, in fact, enough to humble and beguile just about anyone in any sort of weather. There wasnt a ton of weather the day we played, but the wind shifted halfway through our round, forcing us to play into it pretty much all day. This is a relatively straightforward hole with a generous fairway after carrying a series of fairway bunkers for the first 200 yards. Another beauty is the 12th, a longer par-4 that doglegs slightly to the left. I thoroughly enjoyed my 25 years working at The Kittansett Club. The improvements over the past few years have transformed play. Those elements made Kittansett very much a placement course. They also reinforced the belief that it was indeed a creation of Flynns and a precursor to some of his most celebrated work, for in later years, he included very similar features in his collaboration at Pine Valley with George Crump (think of the fourth, seventh and 13th holes there) and Shinnecock. Actor Bill Murray enjoyed dinner at a Massachusetts seafood restaurant over the weekend, posing for photos with staff and fans. In a recent letter to Selectmen, resident Annie Rockwell, of Parlow Mill Farm Road, asked Selectmen to stop the practice of dual and questionable appointments. The course needed a facelift, said Jim Osborne, who was green chairman at the time. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); The 337 yard 10th hole at We-Ko-Pa Saguaro is a really fun risk/rewark hole that features two templates: a Reverse Cape on the teeshot and Lions Mouth by the green. The fairways were laid out over uncut wooded territory through which paths were cut as the areas for the holes took shape. An 18-hole golf course became a possibility when in the early 1920's a group of residents bought the land on Butler's Point, which until that time had been occupied solely by the Beverly Yacht Club. With a carry over fescue and bunker, this green is guarded on either side by deep bunkers and slopes extremely hard back-to-front. 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