[Tom_Doak]

I had a tour of Eastward Ho! this morning on a beautiful sunny day on Cape Cod.

If ever there was a golf course that deserved an exclamation point in its name, Eastward Ho! deserves one.  Wow.  It's a real roller coaster -- I think those are the most heavily sloping fairways I've ever seen -- and the views are stunning throughout the course. 

I did not find out exactly what parts of it Keith Foster rebuilt or restored, but he did a great job, because there was nothing obviously new.

[Bill_McBride]

I had a tour of Eastward Ho! this morning on a beautiful sunny day on Cape Cod.

If ever there was a golf course that deserved an exclamation point in its name, Eastward Ho! deserves one.  Wow.  It's a real roller coaster -- I think those are the most heavily sloping fairways I've ever seen -- and the views are stunning throughout the course. 

I did not find out exactly what parts of it Keith Foster rebuilt or restored, but he did a great job, because there was nothing obviously new.

I think Mike Sweeney posted some photos of Eastward Ho! a couple of years ago.  I have seldom seen photos that made me want to play a course more!  Maybe someone with a good handle on the search function, or perhaps Mr. Sweeney himself, can post those photos.  "Sloping" might be better expressed as "swooping," there was some incredible movement!

[Ed Oden]

Bill, here is the old thread.  Unfortunately, the pictures are no longer available.  Too bad since I too remember them as being fantastic.

http://golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php/topic,30183.0/

[Peter Pallotta]

Tom - you may know this article already. It is by Herbert Fowler himself, written in 1921. It basically gives a hole-by-hole description of the course.  

www.la84foundation.org/SportsLibrary/GolfIllustrated/1921/gi156p.pdf

Peter

PS - When I last posted it, Randy Van Sickle wrote: "I read it with great interest, and found two very interesting references.  One was about the 8th green being a punchbowl, which I don't believe ever happened.  Our photos of the green from 1922 seem to indicate it is today as it is was then - a severely sloping green from back right to front left.  The other was a reference to a pond short and right of the 12th green.  It is not there today and I never before knew of its existence."

[Adam Sherer]

Tom, et al

Keith redid all of the bunkers, tees, and expanded a few greens.  As well, the short game area, putting green, and the driving range were revamped.

The superintendent (Frank Hancock) is a really sharp guy and was a great selection for the club (as was Keith).

Adam

[Garland Bayley]

...
I did not find out exactly what parts of it Keith Foster rebuilt or restored, but he did a great job, because there was nothing obviously new.

Wow! Do nothing collect a fee. I guess I chose the wrong career path!

[cary lichtenstein]

Played it, loved every minute

[Anthony_Nysse]

Tom, et al

Keith redid all of the bunkers, tees, and expanded a few greens.  As well, the short game area, putting green, and the driving range were revamped.

The superintendent (Frank Hancock) is a really sharp guy and was a great selection for the club (as was Keith).

Adam

Frank was an assistant at Shinnecock prior to coming to Eastward Ho! Working under Mark Michard, I'm sure that Frank is as good as any!

Tony Nysse
Pine Tree GC
Boynton Beach, FL

[Mike Sweeney]

I switched servers so those pics are gone. However the club has a very good course tour:

http://www.eastwardho.org

[Randy Van Sickle]

FWIW, those photos on the club website are kind of out of date.  I've never seen the course look better than it does at the present, but with all the rain and moisture we've had this season, the fescue is thick way beyond our intentions.  Very difficult to fight mother nature when it comes to fescue.  The greens are amazing and the rest of the course is playing quite firm and fast, a testament to Frank's abilities and his staff's dedication.

[Anthony Gray]

  Why the name Eastward Ho!?

  Thanks...Anthony

[Mike Sweeney]

  Why the name Eastward Ho!?

http://golfoncapecod.com/CourseReview-EastwardHo.php

It has had a bunch of names, but I assume the current name is due to the course directly east of them:

[Ally Mcintosh]

Which was of course designed (or redesigned at least) by the same man.... I think it was where he hailed from as well...

[Tom_Doak]

The funny thing about comparing the two courses is that Westward Ho! might have the flattest fairways of any course I've seen, and Eastward Ho! might have the hilliest.

[Anthony Butler]

FWIW, those photos on the club website are kind of out of date.  I've never seen the course look better than it does at the present, but with all the rain and moisture we've had this season, the fescue is thick way beyond our intentions.  Very difficult to fight mother nature when it comes to fescue.  The greens are amazing and the rest of the course is playing quite firm and fast, a testament to Frank's abilities and his staff's dedication.

The fescue is wild? Add the wind, and it's a baby Shinnecock.

All the courses in Massachusetts are looking great right now. If it stops raining for five minutes, golf in August/Sept./Oct should be something special this year.

[Dan_Callahan]

All the courses in Massachusetts are looking great right now. If it stops raining for five minutes, golf in August/Sept./Oct should be something special this year.

I hope you're right. I'm playing Waverley Oaks on Saturday for my first round in over a month. This rain has been depressing, and it's hard to believe the course won't be very soggy. Too bad it isn't the winter ... this would have been the best ski season ever.

[Cliff Hamm]

Dan...fwiw played Waverly about two weeks ago in the midst of monsoon season.  The course was not soggy, and while not fast and firm had some roll to it.

[Ray Richard]

They passed out a copy of the original member prospectus for the property at the pre-bid.An amazing document, I'll try to post a copy.

Foster's work could be called a sympathetic restoration. He told the bidders that the bunker sod would be removed, and a small amount of dirt relocated. He claimed that most of the original design remained and he wanted to find it.

The superintendent came from Shinnecock.

[Peter Pallotta]

A little snippet from Fowler, from 1921:

"There is probably no place in the world where so many opportunities offer themselves for the making of the best type of golf courses as on Cape Cod. Almost the whole of that wonderful peninsula is waiting for golf and that of the very best sort. The  natural soil, the contours of the ground, the climate, everything combines to make a golfers' paradise. In fact, one may truly say that the Cape closely resembles the land on which many of the historic links of Great Britain have been made. So that "Eastward Ho," which the links of the Chatham Country Club at Chathamport, Mass., has been named, is in a position to vie for popularity with the famous English course, "Westward Ho."

Interesting that Fowler himself makes the comparison, that he leaves no noubt what he thinks is, in general, the ideal type of "ground for golf", and that he seemed able to work equally well on the heathlands and by the sea.   

Peter

[Tim Pitner]

Regarding Keith Foster, I think some of his original designs are very solid--The Harvester, Haymaker, Buffalo Run.  I'd like to see what he could do with a really good site.  (Perhaps he's already had that opportunity and I'm just not familiar with it). 

[Sean Leary]

I had a chance to play EH a couple of years ago with Randy and Pete Lavallee. Just blew me away with how good it was. Seems like an idyllic place to play all summer on the Cape. They had just taken out all the trees, and it was a November, clear cold sunny day. Spectacular place.

Randy, how did the clubhouse turn out?

[Tim Gavrich]

When I first started browsing GCA a few years ago, Eastward Ho! was the first course I really didn't recognize much whose profile I read.  It looks marvelous, although I'm left to wonder something.  Does the nature of the terrain in the fairways dictate that on some holes (par 4s mostly, I mean), a majority of tee shots roll to the same general area due to the big slopes?  If so, does the subsequent taking of many divots in a concentrated area--a la #10 at Shinnecock in the 2004 US Open--constitute a slight foible?  Or does EH just not get enough play for it to matter so much?

--Tim

[Bill_McBride]

Regarding Keith Foster, I think some of his original designs are very solid--The Harvester, Haymaker, Buffalo Run.  I'd like to see what he could do with a really good site.  (Perhaps he's already had that opportunity and I'm just not familiar with it). 

The Bandit in New Braunfels, TX, is a big burly golf course on some rolling terrain that is a real test.  Between lakes and a barranca that runs through quite a few holes, it is tough.  I thought the site was good, maybe not really good.

[john_stiles]

Have always had a healthy lust for Eastward Ho! after seeing a two page aerial,  the rumpled course spread on pages 34 & 35 on the first edition of 'The Golf Course',  Cornish & Whitten, 1981.

And of Fowler,    " I never knew anyone who could more swiftly take in the possibilities of a piece of ground and I think his clients thought, quite unjustly, that he had not taken sufficient pains, because he could see so clearly and work so fast. "      Benard Darwin,   as reprinted in 'The Golf Course'.

[Ed Oden]

For some reason the link to Ran's course profile of Eastward Ho under the "Courses By Country" tab doesn't work.  I hope that is just a temporary situation.

Ed

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