Ran -
I tend to sell the Maine golf experience short on this site, so I am overwhelmed to hear Cape Arundel mentioned in the same breath with Fishers.
I play the course often, and it certainly has that "time machine" feel to it. I am sorry to say that while I can tell you that it is a mere 90 minutes north of Boston, and that seeing it as a featured course would be excellent, I am ignorant of its architectural history. My amateur's eye says that not much has changed since 1925.
GCA is always clamoring for a 5800 yard par 69, and this is the one. The longest hole is 490 yards, the terrain is interesting but mild, the bunkering is strategic but not overly penal, which leaves . . . the greens.
The contours on the Cape Arundel greens are unique in my limited experience. The "flatter" ones have subtle, unreadable breaks. The other ones are simply outrageous - shelves, dips, false fronts, false sides, swales, you name it. Get onto the correct side of the fairway, and keep it below the hole.
HOLES OF NOTE
5 - 320 yards for two shots, 270 as the crow flies. Touring pros (Love, Couples) who stop by for a round with the Bush family never cease to amaze by driving this green, carrying a nasty hazard and two bunkers en route.
8 - 370 yards, straightforward tee shot, although anything not dead center leaves a nasty approach to a green that resembles a wrecked automobile.
10 - 320 yards, long iron over the road, wedge to a green that falls off six feet left and back, very deep bunker right, and of course the pin is always on the four-yard long back shelf
17 - 365 yards, again a wide-open tee shot, but the green is located blindly at the bottom of a steep hill in front of the twenty-foot high directional pole, and the back of it flows down from the front in the form of a five-foot tall dividing ridge - unbelievable
While Cape Arundel is always a treat, I have to say that I prefer a lesser known but equally ancient and strategic course right around the corner, the Webhannet Golf Club. Can anyone provide any information on this one? Like the architect, for starters?