When the Army Corps of Engineers gouged 20 million cubic
yards of rock and earth from the Massachusetts towns of Bourne and Sandwich in the early
1930s, the great canal they cut became an accepted boundary between Cape Cod and the rest of the world. But lately I have
stood on tee boxes at new courses like Waverly Oaks and the two Pinehills Golf
Club layouts in Plymouth—just seven miles off-Cape—and quietly dissented. Better
to judge by your senses than by the swath the Corps arbitrarily dug, I now say.
Cape Cod begins when the last 'burb is behind you and squat-but-fragrant pines
begin to press against the guardrails of Route 3, the heavily traveled
thoroughfare from Boston.
At that point in the ride south you have crossed onto land
blessed with soils that are self-draining and wonderfully easy to fashion—that
is, perfect golf terrain. As a further blessing to course builders, the ground
in many spots comes pre-shaped by nature into green sites and tee ledges that an
architect need only recognize, not invent.
The Pinehills phenomenon is something new to this part of the
world, where enjoyment of golf has long been a hopscotch experience. As in, play
here, stay there, build your vacation home somewhere else. But the 3,000-acre
Pinehills development, once it debuts a planned mid-rise hotel (a Marriott
conference center, expected to open in 2005 with 250 rooms and a
12,000-square-foot spa), will be able to bill itself as a complete golf
destination. Its menu will range from daily public play to overnight lodging and
meeting space to residential neighborhoods within the compound. And, soon
enough, a private club. Space for two additional 18-hole courses can be seen on
the Pinehills master plan, although the buzz is that a third course, strictly
for member play, will get rolling in the next year or two and may complete the
golf inventory. Meantime, Pinehills already touts itself enthusiastically as a
double-barreled, daily-fee golf romp—play a Nicklaus in the morning, a Rees
Jones in the afternoon—and as a real estate opportunity for golf-minded types
seeking a prestigious address.
The brand-new Nicklaus course at Pinehills spreads out
handsomely through oak and pine woodlands, sailing along natural ridges and
hugging the deep, dry depressions known as kettles. There are more holes on this
6,640-yard (blue tees) course that place a premium on the second shot, but
you'll come upon some demanding driving holes, as well. On a moist, early-May
day, a threesome I joined up with opted to play from the whites (6,129 yards)
and still met a stiff challenge. Working its way through spacious corridors
(trust me, there are Cape courses where too
narrow a chute was cut for most holes), the Nicklaus layout at Pinehills reveals
some stimulating tilt and ripple on its fairways. The slyly swerving par-4
fifth, with rough-lined bunkering at the turn and also greenside, plays tighter
than it looks. Throughout this 18 there are aesthetic delights. Finishing out on
No. 2 green in a raw breeze, we experienced group hypnosis as we stared at a
hillside cloistering the green while its high fescue grass billowed madly but in
an odd, repeating pattern.
The Jones Course is no less adventurous than the Nicklaus in
the way it scales the ridges and sets up shots across the kettles. Many par-4s
and par-5s on this elder of the two 18s feature raised fairways, which give the
landing area a dramatic visual definition as you stand on the tee, but also
paint a clear picture of the awkward, below-grade lie you'll have if you drive
your ball off-line. On both courses, you find sets of par-3s that play
knob-to-bluff or over-the-kettle and offer not just visual satisfaction but a
chance to make double-bogey quickly.
The only precedent for the Pinehills concept in this region
is New Seabury, which looks back on a zigzag history but appeared reborn during
a recent visit. This is a resort-real estate-country club development that
opened during the Kennedy Administration (can't write about the Cape and leave
that name out, right?) and stunned the Cape's
leisure industry with its sheer scale and outsized ambitions. A few mission
statements later, the 2,600-acre property just across Nantucket Sound from
Martha's Vineyard seems, at long last, to have
come fully of age. New ownership (which includes the financier Carl Icahn)
knocked down the existing clubhouse ("It was a temporary building that happened
to last 40 years," quips director of golf Scott Nickerson) and replaced it with
a jaw-dropping, 42,000-square-foot colossus as swank as any golf clubhouse on
the East Coast—private or public. Along with being a drop-dead place to hold
your daughter's wedding (New Seabury figures to do some 120 wedding receptions
this year), this tan-shingled, hip-roofed clubhouse sends a message of stability
and ample resources to fund the future. Somewhere in that future will be new
housing phases and, according to management, a 150-room resort hotel. For now,
there are charming clusters of modern rental accommodations and residential
resales on a limited basis.
If you haven't teed it up at New Seabury lately, expect to
find a thoroughly renovated Green Course—now known as the Dunes—and a polished
up Blue 18 now known as the Ocean Course. The latter's sublime four-hole glide
along the waterfront with thrilling views of Martha's Vineyard are unchanged,
and the overall specialness of this William Mitchell design endures. During a
break from his renovation work on the Dunes Course, however, course designer
Marvin Armstrong visited the Ocean and redid some landing areas to prevent wily
regulars from cutting off doglegs and shortening their trips. Nos. 10 and 18 got
the Armstrong treatment, as did the par-4 ninth.
