Oyster Harbors on Cape Cod

[Steve_ Shaffer]

I couldn't find too much here about this 1926 Ross course recently restored by Renaissance Golf.

It is listed on the Shivas Irons Society Auction at www.shivas.org. This item ends tonight.

Here is the write up:

A classic masterpiece by one of the great architects of the early 20th Century
Architect Donald Ross has 26 courses listed in the top 100 of Golfweek Magazine's Best Classic Courses

Located on the south coast of Cape Cod, the private Oyster Harbors Club is an original Donald Ross design. Ross supervised the construction in 1926 and became Vice President of Oyster Harbors Club. He played countless rounds here and felt the course embodied his famous philosophy, "golf should be pleasure not penance." Many of that era's leading golf figures visited Oyster Harbors as his guest, including; Gene Sarazen, Henry Cotton, Joe Kirkwood, Byron Nelson, Francis Ouimet and Ken Venturi among others.

Oyster Harbors features 6,800 yards of golf from the longest tees for a par of 72 with a course rating of 72.2. The club also offers a stunning, recently renovated clubhouse.

This past winter, Oyster Harbors complemented its beautiful clubhouse and famous course conditioning with a course-wide bunker restoration program. Led by Tom Doak's Renaissance Golf Design under the direction of Bruce Hepner , the project recaptures the look and feel of Donald Ross' initial design.

[Pete Lavallee]

So Tom finally got past the front gates!

[Malcolm Mckinnon]

I play there often. It is a wonderful Ross course with terrific green complexes.

The clubhouse wasn't renovated, they demolished the old and built a much larger and fancier new one.

Last time out was in September and we admired Doak's, fine and sensitive to the original, work. Five Stars!

[Tom_Doak]

We actually did the bunker work in the fall of 2009, when things were very slow otherwise.  Nearly all of my associates worked on it for at least one stint -- perhaps the most over-qualified bunker renovation crew of all time!  I did not get back there last year to see how it all looks completed, but am supposed to go this spring.

Oyster Harbors has a wonderful set of greens, which we did not touch.

[Mike Sweeney]

It's a little sad when your goal in life is to be one of these guys!!



PS. I am a National member at Wianno and everyone says this is a the second best event of the year on Cape Cod:

http://www.capecodindiansummer.com/index.htm

[Steve_ Shaffer]

The current bid is $900:

[Tom MacWood]

I've had the pleasure of playing the course a few years ago and looking through the club's archives, and its a shame they have not brought it back to its former glory. Oyster Harbors was early on a northern version of Pinehurst #2, featuring tall pines and large patches of sandy scrub area. A hurricane in the 30s or 40s destroyed the pines and a shorter scrub pine took over, but the wall to wall grass is reversible and that remains the present state unfortunately.