6. Franklin Park Golf Course

Location: Dorchester (0:15 south of Boston / 2:36 east of Pittsfield).
Architect: Donald Ross, 1922.
Yardage: 6009 (blue) / 5622 (white) / 5040 (red).
Weekend Rates: $35 Boston resident, $44 non-resident. Carts: + $20.
Best Deal: $31 (Boston resident, weekday).

Driving at Franklin Park's 3rd hole.

Franklin Park GC (also known as William J. Devine) is a short but historic 18-hole track on mostly open and rolling terrain in the inner-city setting of Dorchester. While attending Harvard in the early 1920's, Bobby Jones practiced at Franklin Park, especially honing his game using the field next to the course's best hole, the uphill par four 12th. The storied history of Franklin Park goes well beyond being a home course of Bobby Jones; it is the second oldest public course in the United States, after Van Cortland Park in New York City. Franklin Park was the site of choice of the earliest group of Boston golfers, led by the famous ballplayer George Wright, so Willie Campbell – the first golf professional at The Country Club – formalized Franklin Park’s rolling hills into a 9-hole course in the 1890’s. The current 6009 yard layout is the handiwork of legendary golf architect Donald Ross, who redesigned the existing holes and expanded the course to 18 holes in 1922. Franklin Park’s eighteen illustrate both Ross’s knack for routing fairways through valleys and his light touch building interesting green complexes that echo the land upon which they sit.

The front nine is composed of 7 par fours and 2 par threes. The first four holes loop out and back to the new clubhouse, built in 1998. The 1st hole is a medium-length par four with seemingly a mile-wide fairway; however, a busy park road sinisterly curves close to the right side. Slicers beware a potentially awful start to the round – I have seen on more than one occasion a nasty argument break out between golfer and car passenger after an errant first drive! The 2nd hole is an interesting 310-yard par four with a large hump guarding an upper shelf of fairway starting 100 yards from the green. If you are aggressive off the tee, you may be rewarded with a simple and level wedge shot… or could get stuck behind a massive boulder and V-shaped tree to the right of the short grass. The 3rd hole is the best, and longest, hole on the front side.

These three golfers have hit excellent drives into the valley at the long 3rd.

The 3rd hole plays like many Ross holes: from an elevated tee to a fairway below, and then back to a green on high ground. The tee shot is over a rise of browned out grass to a blind but wide landing area. The uphill second is to an unbunkered, two-tiered green, which is receptive to shots of all length but its nasty pitch from back to front makes up and downs difficult from anywhere except short. The slightly downhill 187-yard 4th hole returns to the clubhouse; its teebox is totally exposed, and thus the wind plays a large factor, affecting the iron shot to a small and well-bunkered green. The 5th, 6th, and 7th are fascinating par fours measuring an increasing 352, 384, and 393 yards, respectively. The 5th's tee shot is blind over a hay-covered hill - a bell rung 100 yards from the green alerts the group on the tee the fairway is clear. Drives can be hit on a myriad of angles from the tee, as the hidden fairway snakes from short left to long right; more aggressive players tend to take on the longer carry to the right, and in doing so must also flight the ball higher to clear the apex of the hill. The tee shot at the 6th hangs in the air forever, as the fairway lies way below in the valley, but the tee shot at the 7th is even more memorable, with the fairway curving sharply but gracefully around a pond ringed by trees. Do you play straight away, lengthening the hole but avoiding the pond? Or are you tempted to fire a driver over the corner of the pond, hoping to hear silence as the ball barely clears the huge trees?

The 7th hole bends around the pond toward the bottom right of this aerial photo.

The green at the 7th is much like the wild 13th green at Taconic in Williamstown - it slopes from back left to front right with many interior undulations and numerous bunkers awaiting a righty's pushed shot. The front nine closes with a short par three and short par four that are solid but unremarkable.

Franklin Park's back nine is slightly longer than the front but probably plays easier to par, as it includes the course's only two par fives. The 10th hole is 345 yards from the blue tees, but is a potentially drivable par four from the 299-yard whites. However, the green is tiny, sharply elevated, and walled off in front by bunkers - good luck!

The drive and pitch 10th hole.

Franklin Park's first par five is an odd one, but not as odd as the second par five - the 18th! Number 11 measures 514 yards, and the tee shot dares you to hit over a 45-degree line of trees marching diagonally up the left side of the offset fairway. If the tee shot is aggressive enough and solidly struck up the left side, the perched green may be in reach with a wood. Franklin Park's best hole is the 407-yard 12th; while virtually the entire course inhabits wide-open land, the 12th climbs uphill with forest lining both sides of the hogsback fairway. Only a long, straight drive will open up the green for the second shot. The humped fairway bounces any fade to its right half into the right rough or woods, and any draw to its left half into the left rough. Hitting the 12th green in two shots is an impressive feat. The 13th is a short par three that drops down the same hill the 12th ascended, and the 14th is a short par four with a blind tee shot and a green placed between a fronting hill and partially sloping away toward a gathering pot bunker behind. Only a well-struck iron will stay on the surface. Franklin Park's last good hole is the uphill 162-yard 15th. It is a classic uphill par three, a type of hole rarely built on modern courses, to a large green where you can only see the top half of the pin for back hole locations. The course closes with two short par fours and a short par five.

The 16th tee: lay up or shoot the gap?

The 16th hole measures 343 downhill yards, with trees pinching the fairway severely inside the 150 yard marker. The trees encroach so much that even if you lay back with a mid-iron off the tee, if the layup isn't dead center of the fairway the branches force some sort of hook or slice to avoid them before carrying the water fronting the green. To say the least, some tree-trimming is in order.

And the tee shot at 17: better be straight!

The 17th hole is the length hole I love: 288 tempting yards. The green is bunkered short left so calls for some sort of sweeping draw played off the hill to the right. Unfortunately, the giant overhanging trees not even 75 yards off the tree make the intended shot utterly impossible. The hole would be much improved as a driveable par four if a couple of the trees on the right were cut back. Franklin Park Golf Course finishes with a par five unlike any other I've played: a nearly vertical hill 260 yards off the tee forces a layup where shorter is almost better! A shot played too far to the base of the hill may have no chance to get anywhere near the green in two, as the slope may dictate a short iron just to clear it!

While the back nine closes with a weak stretch of golf holes, the sum of the experience is overwhelmingly positive. I'd consider Franklin Park like a younger sibling to nearby George Wright - the course is often in better shape, the length is not overwhelming, the fairways are wide, the terrain is not rocky but rolling, though the greens are small and challenging like most Ross putting surfaces. Franklin Park is a delight to play alone or with a couple friends - friends you hope stay by your side if you slice it into the road off the first tee!

Course Rating: 5 stars out of 10

Bang for your $44 bucks: 7 stars out of 10

5. Taconic Golf Club

Location: Williamstown (2:49 west of Boston / 0:29 north of Pittsfield).
Architects: Wayne Stiles and John Van Kleek, 1928.
Yardage: 6850 (gold), 6230 (blue), 5202 (red).
Weekend Rates: $145. Cart included.
Best Deal: $80 (Williams College-affiliated).

Sipping a BBC Steel Rail on the clubhouse's porch is the perfect way to wrap up a round at Taconic.

Admittedly, I have a huge bias toward Taconic Golf Club - I've played there hundreds of times as it is the on-campus course for Williams College students, my alma mater. That said, I honestly believe Taconic is one of the best golf courses I have ever played, and the best accessible course I've played in Massachusetts. Taconic is rated the 30th best public course in the USA by Golf Magazine and the #1 college course in the country by Golfweek Magazine. It is heavily used by students, professors, and local townspeople alike, but is open each afternoon to the general public for $145 and regularly hosts notable tournaments, including the 1996 U.S. Senior Amateur and the 2004 Massachusetts Amateur.

Taconic Golf Club defends par not with brute length, but with imaginative and challenging greens; it is possible to go rounds and rounds and rounds without losing a ball and still struggle for good scores. Almost every green is contoured to accept a shot accordingly from one side of the fairway or another, and on many holes there are certain areas around the greens that leave only the opportunity for the occasional miracle up and down. Examples of ill-advised misses around greens include left of the 1st, right of the 3rd, over the 6th, short of the 8th, over the 10th, right of the 12th, and so on... Experience is important in knowing which direction a particular green is safe to miss so as to leave the opportunity to recover.

After the relatively bland short par five 1st hole (which has been improved by three staggered fairway bunkers added in Gil Hanse's 2008 renovation) and the medium-length par four 2nd which hops a creek before climbing to a hillock, the golfer arrives on the 3rd tee. The 407-yard par four ripples downhill against the towering backdrop of the Berkshire Mountains to a contoured green defended by 2 bunkers, out of bounds right, and Phoebe's Creek lurking below on the left.

Williams Women's golfers take in the inspirational view down the 3rd hole.

A 150-yard path behind the difficult 3rd green takes you along a pond and to the secluded 4th tee, the furthest point on the course from the clubhouse. The hole is a strategic short par four with the tee shot anywhere from a 4-iron to a driver over the pond to the diagonal fairway hugging the creek.

Smack in the middle of the 4th hole's pond: A "Suggestion Box"!

The 4th fairway didn't always hug the creek; before the 2008 renovation, it was separated by a strip of rough about 10 yards wide. The new fairway configuration should tempt more golfers to shorten the hole down the left, and in the process, get their balls gobbled up by Phoebe's Creek.

The dark green shading marks the recent expansion of the 4th fairway toward the creek on the left.

The 5th hole is a solid mid-length par three, and the 6th is a short par four but uphill the whole way to a wildly sloped green. Many students and members intentionally play the approach short of the green and take their chances getting up and down with the resulting straightforward uphill chip. The 7th hole is a long par four with a recently restored crossbunker obscuring the approach to another segmented putting surface: the 7th's green has two marked tiers, with the higher back tier separated left and right by a huge hump encroaching from behind the green. The 8th hole is an underrated beauty, as the drive is lofted against the backdrop of Williamstown's dorms, steeples, and observatories, and the approach is downhill to a green falling away. Only a crisp short-iron will avoid bounding over the green and down into a rough-filled depression.

The 8th green sneakily slopes away from the player.

The front nine ends with a sharply downhill par three into a hollow near the clubhouse. The shot is an unquestionably pretty one, as the kidney-shaped green is surrounded by three bunkers, towering pines, birch trees, and fescue and scrub-covered hillsides.

The back nine is significantly harder than the front, covering slightly wilder terrain and measuring about 400 yards longer than the first nine! Taconic's 10th hole is extraordinary, and notable among all holes in Massachusetts for its green. The green on this 510-yard par five drops almost 6 feet from back to front, making it virtually impossible to stop a downhill putt anywhere near the pin. The severe green dictates play, as most good golfers play what would normally be a reachable par five conservatively as a three-shotter, choosing to control a short 3rd shot directly below the pin as opposed to firing long 2nd shot that could easily end up in horrible position around the green.

The 6th, 10th, and 13th greens, along with the 7th, 11th, and 14th tees converge at bottom left.

Taconic's 11th hole is its longest par four, measuring 470 dramatic yards. A good drive ends up at the base of a rise 200 yards from the green - from there, a solidly struck long iron will reach the partially blind green, open in front to a running shot, but defended by deep bunkers left and right.

Crowds follow 2004 Massachusetts Amateur finalists at the 11th.

Taconic's 363-yard 12th hole may be its most strategic, and the strategy was only enhanced by the relocation of the back tee down and to the left of the middle markers. The drive is across a fescue-covered gully and provides a "cape" dilemma - should you bail out to the right, avoiding the gully and out of bounds, but leave yourself a difficult iron shot across a fronting bunker to the tiny green? Or do you want to take on the longer carry to the left, challenging out of bounds but potentially setting up a simple wedge shot straight down the green's throat? The answer may vary depending on the day's conditions, the player's adventuresome spirit, or a combination of both. The 13th hole is, in my opinion, the best on the course and one of the best holes I've ever played. It measures 391 yards and plays across a sideslope from left to right with out of bounds left. The drive is gorgeous, with three mountains in the distance framing the landing area, and the approach is challenging, to a huge rectangular green benched into the hillside but still sloping significantly from back left to front right.

The idyllic drive at Taconic's 13th.

The 14th turns right and plays perpendicularly to the 13th - the tee is the highest point on the golf course and commands beautiful views of both the majestic purple mountains surrounding Williamstown and the green fairways well below. In the 1956 U.S. Junior Amateur held at Taconic, 16-year old Jack Nicklaus hit an 8-iron to the well-bunkered 14th green and found the cup for an ace!

The narrow target at the 173-yard 14th hole.

The final four holes at Taconic are lengthy monsters. The 15th measures 441 downhill yards, commanding a breathtaking view of rocky Pine Cobble in the distance. The 16th's new tee box pushes it to 460 punishing yards, the last 100 of which are straight uphill to a canted hillside green. Short is the best miss, and the extra yardage will ensure that short of the green is certainly the most popular place to end up!

Looking back down the steep hill at the long par four 16th.

The 17th hole is a very long par three, measuring from 220 to 246 yards, and ends with a green that was part of the original primitive 1896 Taconic layout. The green is the most heavily sloped on the course, which is certainly saying something. Any shot missed above the hole has a lot of work to do to get down in 2 strokes - it is imperative that the long tee shot be kept short of the flag. Taconic ends with a medium-length par five, a great swing hole where eagle is a possibility, but so is double-bogey as out of bounds lurks all along the left side from tee to green. Playing the last four holes in even par is sure to pick up strokes in any match.

Taconic's storied history includes Jack Nicklaus making a "1" at the 14th.

Taconic is renowned as one of the most beautiful places in the world to play golf in the fall, as tees and greens throughout the course provide stunning vistas of the Berkshire Mountains. The long views on the course combine with the wonderful small-town atmosphere of the club itself, highlighted by a faded sign on the pro shop reading "No Preferred Lies, We Play Golf Here." Golfers at Taconic pride themselves on quick pace of play, and the compact routing allows singles and twosomes to walk 18 holes in closer to two hours than the standard four. Though the course is hilly and cart fees are included in green fees, most golfers walk and carry their bag; seeing 90-year-old members stride the fairways is not an uncommon sight. There is nothing quite like an October Saturday afternoon spent golfing on Taconic with the crisp air, changing leaves, and Eph football fans roaring to the left of the 18th fairway.

Course Rating: 9 stars out of 10

Bang for your $145 bucks: 6 stars out of 10

4. Marion Golf Course

Location: Marion (1:08 south of Boston / 2:56 SE of Pittsfield)

Architect: George Thomas, 1904

Yardage: 2695

Rates (9-holes): $14 (walking)

An impressive rock wall guards the green at Marion's 3rd.

Marion Golf Course is a hidden 9-holer touching the Atlantic Ocean, most famous for being the first course built by architect George Thomas. Thomas went on to create many brilliant tracks including Riviera Country Club in Los Angeles, but little Marion is where he got his start. Riviera and Marion are totally different breeds, no question, but each has its unique place in the game of golf. Riviera is known for being one of the most heroic and strategic golf courses in the world - features such as a boomerang-shaped green at the 1st, the bunker smack in the middle of the 6th green, the recently restored dual fairways at the par four 8th, and the diagonal sliver of a putting surface at the drivable 1oth hole make Riviera stand out as an American classic. Little Marion stands out too for its appearance: unchanged since 1904, the architecture is so rudimentary it almost doesn't feel like a golf course at certain points. Impressive but crumbling rock walls lie perpendicular between tee and green on every par three, long linear mounds criss-cross fairways stop balls from scooting along the rock-hard ground, and bunkers are placed in spots such as 100 yards off the first tee - perhaps a hazard for most to think about 100 years ago but not today! At Marion, the length of the holes may be slight, but hazards abound in odd places, ensuring thought must be put into hopscotching the golf ball over and around the walls and berms.

Note the random rocky mound in the foreground, and berm dividing the fairway in the distance.

Marion begins with a par four tumbling gently from a teebox cozied up right next to the small clubhouse. Like most of Marion's fours, it is a short one, and it's immediately apparent that the lack of irrigated fairways allows the ball to run out with the ground contours. However, a pair of crossbunkers stand sentinel 50 yards short of the blind green, deterring any rational thought of using driver to get close to the surface. The second hole is another par four, and is a literal 90-degree dogleg right, rising up a hill to a challenging convex green. Another lengthy crossbunker punishes anyone greedy enough to cut the corner, and the prudent play appears to be two mid-irons. Marion's strength is its memorable, and somewhat themed, set of three par threes. The 3rd hole is a slightly uphill mid-iron to a green that is obscured by a fronting rock wall. Only the very right-most portion of the small target is visible, so the result of any shot to a left pin is a mystery until you round the end of the rocky barrier! Holes 4, 5, 6, and 7 run absolutely parallel to each other toward the ocean and back, and are broken up by rocky mounds, scattered bunkers, and berms cutting straight across the fairway as seen above.

A horseshoe bunker around a rockpile guards the 7th green.

Marion ends with neat back to back par threes at the 8th and 9th, which both utilize rock walls to create blindness and confusion from the tee. Number 8 is a longer par three that plays up over a rock wall about three-quarters of the way to the simple green, which is located in a peaceful pocket of trees.

A notch in the wall allows access for walkers to the 8th green.

Number 9 is the quirkiest, yet most memorable, hole on the golf course. The shot is barely 100 yards, and downhill to boot, but the green is obscured by what looks like a large bunker abruptly fronting the putting surface. Only once you walk down the hill and skirt the left side of the bunker to glimpse your ball do you see that the entire bunker is propped up by a tall rock wall hidden from the tee! Sand spills from the bunker over the rocks and onto the grass a few feet in front of the green - extremely cool.

Marion's unique par threes make it one of a kind in Massachusetts golf - there is nowhere else in the state you can play over three ivy-covered rock walls! The golf course should be on the radar of Massachusetts golfers, not for the scoring challenge it provides but for the historic place in American architecture it occupies. Marion is the perfect course to remove the 460-cc titanium driver from the bag and challenge yourself with a half-dozen old clubs on a very old course. The brown fairways broken by archaic linear mounds are reminders that Marion is an anachronism of the modern golf landscape. Go see it tomorrow, or wait fifty years - Marion Golf Course will play the same.

Course Rating: 3 stars out of 10

Bang for your $14 bucks: 8 stars out of 10

3. Brookline Golf Club at Putterham

Location: Brookline (0:15 SW of Boston / 2:16 east of Pittsfield).

Architects: Wayne Stiles and John Van Kleek, 1931.

Yardage: 6317 (blue) / 5958 (white) / 4904 (gold).

Weekend Rates: $38 Brookline res., $49 non-resident. Carts + $19.

Best Deal: $23 resident, $26 non-resident (M-Th, twilight).

One way to play the 9th hole at Putterham...

Brookline Golf Club, previously known as Putterham Meadows, is a busy 18-hole public course that shares a border with The Country Club, venerable site of numerous national championships. In fact, Brookline Golf Club became a possibility only after The Country Club agreed to swap some of its unused flat acreage with the Town of Brookline, who traded land unsuitable to build golf holes upon. However benevolent the swap may have seemed, and have no doubt it was necessary for all 18 holes of Brookline GC to be built, The Country Club demanded an 8-foot high barbed wire fence be built along the border between the new town land and club property! The differences between Brookline GC and The Country Club persist to this day, with an obvious asymmetry in their public versus private nature, but perhaps a more important one in the variance of the land they lie upon despite being next-door neighbors.

Brookline's fairways at bottom left; TCC's holes and ponds adjoining upper right.

Before it was a golf course, Brookline GC was an area known to residents as "Putterham Meadows," an area full of wildlife, but swampy and covered in peat. The swampland, when combined with The Country Club's gift of more flatlands, is simply not exciting terrain for golf. A couple big hills punctuate the 2-dimensional space, which make for a few interesting shots interspersed throughout the round. My friend Danny made as close to a hole in one as I've ever seen on the sharply downhill 175-yard 3rd hole, somehow trickling his ball to finish a few inches directly behind the hole! Other than the merits of the dropping 3rd, the approaches to the par four 4th, 7th, and 16th greens catch the golfer's attention as they are all appealing short irons to greens situated on plateaus. The best hole on the course is probably the 12th, a par three measuring a mere 132 yards, but to an intimidating target. The green is tucked in a dell between two fronting hazards and an imposing granite wall just feet off the back of the putting surface. The target is much larger than it appears, but the visuals from the tee may evoke a less than confident swing!

Peering over the hillock to the 9th's landing area

While Stiles and Van Kleek are talented architects, it seems to me they didn't put enough effort in to spice up the flattish holes of Brookline GC. Many holes play parallel to each other with unimaginative bunkering and low-lying green complexes, and the course condition suffers from the lack of earth movement in the fairways and resulting poor drainage. While the course boasts a set of solid par threes and the aforementioned excellent short par four greensites, there are few appealing long holes and thus not much balance in the layout.

Course Rating: 4 stars out of 10

Bang for your $26 Bucks: 5 stars out of 10

2. George Wright Golf Course

Location: Hyde Park (0:25 SW of Boston / 2:25 east of Pittsfield)
Architect: Donald Ross, 1939.
Yardage: 6440 (blue) / 6096 (white) / 5131 (red)
Weekend Rates: Boston res. $33, non-resident $41. Cart: +$18.

Best Deal: $29 (Boston resident, weekday).

George Wright Golf Course is a rough around the edges Donald Ross masterpiece. The course's scruffy condition echoes the blue-collar Boston neighborhood of Hyde Park in which it resides. George Wright is built on mostly rocky terrain, which makes for a number of thrilling downhill shots as well as a handful of blind drives and blind approaches. The course opens with 2 unmemorable warm-up par fours, but the screws tighten at the 3rd hole, a medium-length par five twisting through a narrow valley ending at a green on a plateau. A long drive down the left side opens up the opportunity to get home in two, but trees guard any aggressive but offline approach. The 4th is a solid par three across a valley, and is followed by one of Massachusetts best golf holes, the long par four 5th. George Wright's 5th hole is one of a kind: the drive is fired across a deep ravine to a fairway rising steadily to a summit 250 yards from the back tee. Most drives will finish short of this crest, and thus the long approach is totally blind, up and over the hill to a huge sunken green at the bottom of the slope! Hitting the 5th green in regulation is a great accomplishment. The 7th and 9th holes are excellent par fours that round out the front nine, both featuring drives to hidden landing areas. The string of fun golf shots from the 3rd to the 9th hole is a testament to the inventive way Donald Ross routed the front nine up and over the many hills.

Looking back at the ski-slope 12th fairway

The back nine at George Wright features an equal number of classic golf holes. The long par four 10th hole sweeps left, the fairway plunging down a steep hill to a sunken green, the concept a bit of a mirror image of the 5th. The 11th climbs back up the ridge to a plateau fairway weaving right to a green pocketed in a hillside. For years, the 12th fairway has been used as a sledding hill for local youths - perhaps that is what it should be reserved for! The bobsled nature of the hole, combined with a blind landing area and hidden creek at the slope's bottom combine to make it a goofy tee shot. I've lost my ball off the tee at the 12th more times than not, even with straight as an arrow drives! The medium length par five 15th offers a dilemma off the tee: the drive is over a rocky ledge, wtih the longest carry to the right and less of one to the left. The green, of course, is off to the right, so an aggressive drive over the most scrub and rock may bring it into range in two. The penultimate hole at George Wright is a beauty, a picture postcard of a par three.

The par three 17th

The 17th is a slightly downhill hole playing 170 yards to a pushed up green site. Only a crisply struck mid-iron will hold the putting surface. The course finisher is a mid-length par four, turning left across a creek to a green complex beneath the towering stone clubhouse, a fitting setting to finish a fine golf course.

The clubhouse cost $200,000... in 1939!

Unfortunately, George Wright is often overlooked among Boston-area Donald Ross courses because of years of neglect. Disregarding the scruffy conditioning of the course, holes such as 5, 10, and 11 are unquestionably brilliant design on a massive scale. They would shine just as brightly on any of Ross's better known private Massachusetts layouts. The course is the namesake of George Wright, a legendary baseball player and coach in the late 1800's for the Cincinnati Red Legs and Boston Red Stockings. In 1869, he hit a whopping .633 with 49 home runs in 57 games. By some measures, George Wright Golf Course may exceed those lofty numbers - at least two-thirds of the 18 holes are unique and exhilarating tests.

Course Rating: 7 stars out of 10

Bang for your $41 Bucks: 8 stars out of 10

1. Cape Ann Golf Course

Location: Essex (0:46 NE of Boston, 2:55 east of Pittsfield)
Architect: Skip Wogan, 1931.
Yardage: 3050 (blue)
Weekend Rates (9-holes): $20. Cart +$15.

The tee shot at the 4th

Cape Ann Golf Course is the site of one of the most scenic holes in all of Massachusetts, the par five 4th. After the course opens with three parallel holes of increasing merit, you climb to the 4th tee, perched atop a ridge blessed with an incredible vista: a hint of blue Atlantic Ocean in the distance, golden salt marshes extending to the left, and the green of the curved fairway well below. The 4th hole measures 465 yards, and the tee shot is a bit of the "cape" variety: should you challenge carrying part of the marsh on the left to lessen the distance for the approach and set up a possible eagle? Or are you content to drive down the safer right side and play the hole as a three-shotter? Either way, the drive is thrilling against the ocean backdrop, and the approach is testing to a small green guarded tightly front left by a bunker and along its left side by unplayable marsh. After back to back short but interesting par fours at the 5th and 6th, Cape Ann's second great hole is found at the par three 7th.

The 256-yard tips at the 7th

The par three 7th hole stretches to a maniacal 256 yards from the far back tee, where I ripped a driver only to one-hop into the right front bunker. From the normal back tee, the length is more manageable, but still about 200 yards. The green is miniscule, surrounded on three sides by marsh, and heavily sloped from the edges to the middle like a bowl. With the majority of golfers inevitably missing the green, recovery shots are plenty, and plenty delicate to deal with the green's significant mounded shoulders! A par here should be celebrated. Cape Ann closes with two medium length par fours, with the 9th green located in a pocket beyond a wide crossbunker. More importantly, the 9th green is but a few yards from the clubhouse and 1st tee - a teasing invitation to play another quick nine.

Cape Ann is truly a wonderful short 9-holer that is well worth the drive north from Boston. The spectacular 4th and 7th are supported by seven other solid holes featuring tiny yet interesting greens. The course has clearly not changed much in the past 80 years - the fairways curve simply with the land, greens are located on high spots and canted with the land, and the length of the holes haven't been modernized to keep up with current technology. There's no wonder Cape Ann was the favorite course of famed novelist John Updike; the varied texture and vistas seen from Cape Ann's tees are inspirational untouched sights of an America left behind many years ago.

Course Rating: 6 stars out of 10

Bang for your $20 Bucks: 9 stars out of 10