Welcome To the Granite State
It's a shame that much of the country only thinks about New Hampshire every four years when election times rolls around. It's doubly unfortunate that primary season falls in the dead of winter because the Granite State features some of the finest golf in the Northeast. There are relatively few courses in this largely mountainous, north country outpost, but what's here is exquisite, much of it blessed with the grandest, most historic resort accommodations you'll find anywhere.
The White Mountains dominate the landscape here, so it follows that New Hampshire boasts several spectacular mountain golf courses. Indeed, it could be argued that Donald Ross invented the idea of mountain golf with his 1912 design at The Balsams Golf Club in Dixville Notch. The Panorama Course is old world golf at altitude, with attitude. It also sits beside The Balsams, a grand summer hotel.
The "Donald Ross/Grand Summer Hotel" dynamic is equally affecting in
Bretton Woods, home to the Mt. Washington Hotel Golf Club. Not many resorts
can claim a 1915 Ross design AND a hotel worthy of hosting a United Nations
Monetary and Financial Conference, the historic conclave that gave birth
to the International Monetary Fund and World Bank in July 1944.
By happy coincidence, golf lodging options are numerous in New Hampshire,for reasons that have nothing to do with summer hotels. This is skiing country, of course, and winter resort communities like North Conway are brimming with unique B&Bs and affordable hotels eager to secure your summer business. It just so happens that North Conway also boasts a charming, intage golf course, North Conway Country Club, whose original nine, designed by Ralph Barton in 1928, is well complemented by a modern loop from Phil Wogan. The lodging and golf are even better across the state at Owl's Nest Golf Club in Campton, just down the road from the famed Waterville Valley ski area. Designed by Mark Mungeam and opened in 1999, Owl's Nest is the best of the Granite State's new breed.
Not all of New Hampshire's best golf is dominated by the White Mountains. Portsmouth Country Club, just an hour north of Boston, is one of the top coastal layouts in New England, public or private (indeed, many consider PCC the best course in New Hampshire, public or private). Robert Trent Jones Sr. is responsible for this 1957 track, laid out along the shimmering shores of Great Bay.
Portsmouth is a lively seaport town with scads of great restaurants and lodging options, though the best is surely Wentworth by the Sea, yet another grand summer hotel. Guests can secure tee times (on a limited basis) at the otherwise private Wentworth-by-the-Sea Country Club, which sits just across the bay. The course here is superb, a 1910 Ross layout renovated a few years back by architect Brian Silva, who also designed three new holes on property across a salt-water estuary.
Less mountainous and almost entirely "inland" (the state's seacoast is only 15 miles long), southern New Hampshire serves up the sort of terrain we commonly associate with "classic New England-style" golf courses, meaning tree-lined fairways running over rocky, rolling terrain. Laconia Country Club - designed by the estimable Wayne Stiles and recently overhauled by Wogan and partner George Sargent - fits that bill. Wogan & Sargent (whose design practice is based in New Hampshire) recently served up an original course of real quality, Stonebridge Country Club. Just four years old, Stonebridge has become a regular host to prestigious NH Golf Association championships, including the State Amateur. Closer to the Massachusetts border, five-year-old Atkinson Country Club is another relative newcomer that takes great advantage of some classic New England terrain.
The state's biggest city, Manchester, and the capital, Concord, offer precious little in terms of first-class public golf, though Canterbury Country Club - a Ross Forbes design that opened just last year, just north of Concord - is a notable exception. In southern New Hampshire, the best golf is located in the southwest corner, and the roster is strong indeed. Bretwood Golf Club in Keene is one of New England's few 36-hole facilities and, for decades, fans of the two Geoffrey Cornish designs here have argued over which is superior.
Hooper Golf Club in nearby Walpole doesn't engender this sort of debate because instead of 36 holes, there are only nine. A classic Wayne Stiles design dating from 1926, Hooper is one of the top nine-hole courses in the country. You'll want to go around three times -
once for each year between election cycles.
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