Charles River Country Club
MA, USA
Ninth hole, 180 yards; By locatingthe greenon top of a rocky knob, Ross turned this one shotter intoa true ‘hit it or else’ situation. The steep slopes that lead up to the green will readily kick the golfer’s ball 20 yards away and once the golferhas seenthat happen, the 6,400 square foot green tends to shrink as a target.
The 9th requires a confident swing with a mid iron.
Short and right of the 9th green, this bunker is one that Prichard uncovered and restored. Suffice to say, an up and down is unlikely and a weak bunker shot is likely to see the ball return to the golfer's feet.
Eleventh hole, 240 yards; This is where therouting would have easilybroken down with a lesser architect. Holes 12-18center around specific topographical featuresbut thatleft Ross needing to place two holes over 770 yards of ground. Hemmed in by a road on the far side, what was Ross to do? He gave the 475 yard 10th great character bycreating one of his boldest greens ever and inthe case of the 11th, he found a dell-like area just beyond the crest of a hill and before the road and used it to create a fascinating green site for a long one shotter.The player never tires of trying to gaugehow to bouncehis tee ball onto thegreen.Indeed, Francis Ouimet once famously remarked that the hardestapproach shot at Charles River was the secondon the 11th! This holedeserves to be more famousbut alas,two large willows at the 200 yard mark obscure the right hand side of the green and detract from its otherwise heroic proportions.
The proper line is just right of the bunker at the crest of the hill and ...
...by avoiding the bunker, the tee ball will bound right and onto the 11th green.
Twelfth hole, 360 yards; The first of only three two shotters on the back nine, the drive is blind over a crest and the golfer is left with a short iron from a finicky sidehill stance with the ball below his feet ala the 8th at Pine Valley. Such a stance often creates a bit of a pull as the golfer comes over the top of his shot and inadvertently, sends hisapproach deep into the green. From there, it’s an easy three putt on this steeply pitched back to front green.
Before Prichard's restoration work, these greenside bunkers featured uncharacteristically flashed up sand faces.
Thirteenth hole, 350 yards; For no good reason, some people struggle to remember specific holes on many Ross courses. Even at Pinehurst No. 2, the holes seem to run together in their mind. This is not the case at Charles River which is blessed with many instantlyrecallableholes and none more so than the 13th where a twisting fairway ends abruptly and the green is placed on top of a rock ledge that is some forty feet above the level of the fairway. This sharply uphillpitch is aperfect foil to the downhill, sidehill one on the last hole.
The ideal play off the 13th tee is a hard hook off the lone tree on the hillside.
Eighteenth hole, 445 yards; Perhaps the finest finishing hole in New England, this big two shotter gracefully sweeps to the left. As befits the longest two shotter on the course, the green is an extension of the fairway so the weaker club golfer never feels out of the hole. However, from 10 to 40 yards off the green, there are bunkers left and right of the fairway so the golfer needs to keep his misses straight.
The view from behind the dogleg left 18th hole.
In the early1990s, Charles River didn’t enjoy many of the playing attributesdescribed above.Threehundred additional trees encroacheddirectly intoRoss’s intended lines of play and smothered much of the course’s width, which is always needed on a course with severe topographical features if the average golferis to enjoy himself. In addition, thegreen pads had shrunk by as much as 30% since their original inception,the bunkering with its flashed up sandyfaceshad long since lost the Donald Ross grass faces, and the course in general was not presented in a fast nor firm manner.
However, thanks to the unwavering visionof knowledgeable board members who appreciated what lay underneath the surface, events started to turnfor the betterin 1994 when informational club meetings were held. The club board hired Ron Prichard in 1995 tocreate a Master Plan, which was accepted shortly thereafter. Trees were systematically removed, many of the green pads restored to their original size, the 18 tees were reconstructedand all the grass faced bunkers were faithfully restored as per old photographs. Indeed,in 1997 upon seeing the success of thisrestoration, other New England Rossclubs followed suit with Master Plans of their own.
The Club continues toshowcase the course’s ultimate trump cardwithin the Ross family of courses,which is itsdiverseNew England topography.As more trees are selectively felled, greater vistas across this striking property are opened up. Step by step,additional greens are beingrestored to their original size.Hopefully, one day both the 9th and 18th greenswill come out several feet and the ’squared off’ fronts will be restored, making their false fronts even more diabolical.
Charles Riverjoins other Ross heavyweight courses such as Essex County and Salem CC in making the case thatDonald Ross’s most compelling, distinctive workis found within a one hour’s drive of Boston and not in North Carolina.
Just imagine a game at Charles River in the autumn!
The End