Imagine the Green Mountain landscape encircling Rutland in the fall!
Rutland is the second largest city in Vermont, but it exudes tranquility. Hemmed in by mountains and counting less than twenty thousand residents, Rutland's peaceful ambiance extends to Rutland Country Club, which edges up into hilly terrain northwest of the city's center. The golf course rolls over exciting land while providing panoramic mountain views from its many pedestal tees and greens. Both the front and back nines cross East Creek and venture into highlands, giving great balance to the layout. The course is short, tipping out at 6134 yards, but the Stiles and Van Kleek design is excellent, including a wide variety of holes demanding precise wedge shots time and again. Rutland was built in 1928, immediately before Stiles and Van Kleek's masterpiece, Taconic in Williamstown, MA. The two layouts share a strong sense of brotherhood and each can lay an honest claim to be the most beautiful course in their respective states.
Rutland begins with back to back par fours measuring about 400 yards each; they share little else in common. The 1st is noticably flat, with a road marking out of bounds on the left, and the simply canted green bunkered symmetrically on both sides. The left side of the fairway, nearer to out of bounds, makes the approach slightly more straightforward but probably not enough to challenge the white stakes regularly. The 2nd plays up and over a hill that makes the approach a challenging blind one for most golfers. The green is tucked into a dell at the base of the clubhouse, which serves as a good aiming point depending on where your drive ends up. Rutland's 3rd is the first of a great set of par threes - it measures 170 yards and plays over a valley to a wonderful greensite defended by a rocky outcropping left coupled with a trio of bunkers short right. The 481-yard 4th hole dips down and up through a long depression, culminating at a challenging hilltop green. Any stroke picked up at the 4th will be quickly lost at the 5th, one of the most straightforward and impossible par threes anywhere. It plays a monstrous 223 yards, and uphill at that. The tee shot is over a deep gorge whose creek swallows any topped shots. A good tee shot is but a single solid step, as the green is wickedly sloped from back to front and demands concentration until the ball is in the hole.
Looking down at the 6th green from the left side.
I would consider the 6th and 7th holes a major climax of Rutland's routing. The 415-yard 6th, like the 409-yard 2nd, plays up and over a knob of land; unlike the 2nd, a good drive here should make the top of the hill, leaving a gorgeous postcard of a drop shot to the green bunkered left and falling sharply off into East Creek to its right. The 7th hole can proudly identify itself as a rare exceptional uphill par four.
Rutland's par four 7th defines beauty.
It climbs its way up a steady slope, snaking around fairway bunkers staggered along the right and left sides of the twisting fairway. The green is located at the highest elevation of the front nine, and provides long views back down the fairway and over East Creek. Rutland's 8th through 10th holes provide scoring opportunities as each is a short par four. The 323-yard 11th continues the trend; it's located back across the creek from the clubhouse, and follows the creek to the left, terminating at a narrow green perfectly benched into a sharp hillside. The 12th plays much shorter than its 205 yards - playing down a steep slope, the green is quite narrow at the front and defended by a very deep bunker on the left. The cavernous bunker may be the preferred miss, however, as splashed shots from there can hold the canted right to left green; tee balls missed right have a very delicate pitch to hold the putting surface which slopes away. The 13th winds up a hill for 539 yards - the green has nightmarish pitch from back left to front right. If you go for the green in two shots, you better make sure not to wildly miss long! Even a wedge third shot to this sloped putting surface must stay below the hole location at all costs. I turned two excellent shots into a frustrating bogey with four mediocre shots around and on the pitched green.
Rocky outcroppings frame the great short 14th.
Rutland's best hole is the 393-yard 14th - nary a bunker in play, but trouble everywhere! Rocks encroach on the right side of the fairway... mounds of rough in the middle of the fairway... woods border the left side... a virtual cliff falls off the right side of the plateau green... all this adds up to a wonderfully natural and challenging golf hole. Chasing any pin on the right side of the green takes a lot of confidence, and not just a little idiocy. After the tiny downhill 129-yard 15th, the 365-yard 16th steps up to the highest point on the course, its fairway slanted down the hill to the right. Like many of Rutland's holes located up in the mountainous terrain, the fairway rewards a curved shot that fights the slope of the land. The view from the 17th tee is breathtaking, the wide green fairway far below overshadowed by the towering Green Mountains in the distance. The course ends with a solid dogleg left par four to a green much like the 1st, protected on both sides and sloped steadily back to front.
Rutland Country Club leaves an indelible impression of quality golf. Part is the great conditioning, but I think much stems from the gentle touch Stiles and Van Kleek used in routing a dozen holes over truly rambunctious terrain. The variety of the par threes (measuring 129, 170, 205, and 223 yards), insists on both extremely brute and extremely delicate shots to come away with hard-earned threes. This variety extends to the par fours and fives, with greens sometimes clearly in view but sometimes totally obscured, fairways alternately slanting to the right and to the left, and approach shots somehow terrifying and charming at the same time. Given a few hundred more yards and a more complex set of putting surfaces, Rutland Country Club would be known to many more golfers outside of Vermont and Western Massachusetts. The four hours spent walking the Rutland layout may be taxing on the legs, but it is unquestionably easy on the eyes.
High mountainous terrain is split from low flatlands by rushing East Creek.
Course Rating: 7 stars out of 10
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