A friend at Boston Golf Club who is an architecture aficionado told me the sad news this past Sunday.
My very best to the Stanger family, and to Don and Mike who provided me one of the greatest golf experiences of my life, an awesomely fun day at Wolf Point in December 2012.
Wolf Point etched into my memory on that gray, windy, day playing with Don, Mike, Paul Jones, Lynn Shackelford, and several others in an alternate shot competition.
Though Mike Nuzzo's excellent photos at his website convey something of the course, you have to experience its strategy, behold its beauty, and enjoy the intelligence of this great design personally in order to get a grip on what a unique and precious thing the Stanger's nurtured. I've been lucky enough to play a number of the world's great courses. Wolf Point has some of the best conceived holes on the planet. The third hole is one of golf's great par 5's if the hole is subject to wind, as you must pick your route and have multiple options on the drive and 2nd shot. 5 is the only non tidal Par 4 I know of that is designed to handle annual flooding; most design teams would have spent a fortune on a levee or dike, not Mike and Don. 6 is an out of this world semi redan style Par 3 that ingeniously employs ground slope and a natural jog in the river bend, a gorgeous and dangerous creation; 8 and 18, share an enormous Biarritz green. Not to dismiss 10 through 13, as there are no indifferent holes at WP, but the way the course concludes is absolute brilliance and beauty. 14, a par 5 with trees in the fairway, perfect obstruction on the 2nd shot, requiring a heroic carry to get home in two, if you dare; 15, another Biarritz or double plateau influenced ground level green; 16 a medium length par 4 that is alluring and looks so simple until you discover the danger of the river to the left and one little tiny bunker right of the green; 17 a super strategic long 4 with bunkers and the river requiring careful negotiation; and 18 back to the huge Biarritz, a hole for concluding a tight match where both long and short player are in the game to the end.
God bless you, Mr. and Mrs. Stanger. Your vision and confidence created one of golfs greatest architectural achievements. Wolf Point is part of golf history, an educational and artistic legacy. I pray it will endure.