In the style of and with many thanks to Ran Morrissett.
Longmeadow Country Club
Longmeadow, Massachusetts
Donald Ross, 1924
6757 yardsSome have called me an unappreciative snot nose who merely snipes from the sidelines. To them I say "Behold my Ran-style summary of the venerable Longmeadow Country Club in Longmeadow, Massachusetts."
Designed by Donald Ross in 1922, Longmeadow traverses a magnificent property which has a little bit of everything, from the severe slopes which demarcate a number of fairways and green sites to the vast plains of the first and tenth holes which seem to swallow tee shots and stretch to the horizon.
The green complexes of Longmeadow do not disappoint. The interior contours range from the five foot-tall standing wave in the middle of the seventh green to the unreadable subtleties of the fourteenth. There are dozens of greenside bunkers, but never do they crowd or encroach, and most offer a reasonable chance of recovery. In typical Ross fashion, each green is placed just so, either on top of a natural plateau or tucked neatly into a corner.
Ron Prichard authored a loving master plan in 1999, and most of it has been executed. Trees have been cut down, bunkers have been replaced, and the fairways have been widened to restore the original angles of play.
Longmeadow plays to 6757 yards, perhaps the "longest" course of its length anwhere. The course plays to a par of 70, and the scorecard begins with 436, 439, 601, and features 453, 447, 439, 449, and 238 along the way.
Holes of note
3 - 601 yardsIf the golfer manages to draw his tee ball onto a small and faraway landing area, the reward is being able to see down the rest of this sprawling masterpiece.
From here, perhaps in the rough, perhaps on a downslope, the golfer must decide how much of the ever-narrowing fairway to chew off on his way to the magnificent heaving green.
4 - 134 yards
It's do or die at the fourth, which slopes severely from top left to bottom right. There is no acceptable miss, as the author discovered when his perfect explosion from the left hand bunker casually rolled thirty feet by the cup. The fourth and sixteenth are very similar, but otherwise the one-shotters at Longmeadow are first rate.
9 - 439 yardsRoughly 235 yards down this fairway awaits an upslope that simply kills and eats tee shots. This feature can be found on several of the four-pars here, and they add substantially to the slog.
A drive that strays too far to the left leaves an approach that must seriously content with a ravine filled with "lost ball" rough and the stacked bunkers. Bobby Jones used to practice out of the bottom one with a nine-iron, leaving the cup looking as if it were surrounded by newly fallen snow.
12 - 449 yards
It doesn't get any better than this. The landing area is a horizontal crest that can either swallow the tee ball or send it thirty yards further along her way. The graceful contours of the fairway continue all the way to, through, and beyond the green.
12 - 238 yardsNot exactly your typical bunkerless runuppable extra-long three-par. This green falls away on all sides, steeply at times, and features fantastic interior contours. Extremely difficult.
17 - 423 yardsWhen I say that Donald Ross pulled this one out of his ass, I mean it with the greatest respect towards his singular genius with course routings. This fairway goes along merrily for 260 yards, at which point it ends in a steep downslope of foot high rough. Thirty feet below and forty yards away the hole picks up again, radically curving around another embankment on its way to the gentle and bunkerless green.
