Once again, Golf Course Trades does a splendid job of running my story about New Hampshire’s Rees Jones-designed marvel, Baker Hill. Truly one of the best Rees courses I’ve played, the club also will have one final year to celebrate the career of the only head superintendent they’ve ever had: Bob Turcotte, a.k.a. Baker Hill Bob.
All across the east – from Ohio to Boston and beyond, all I’ve heard all year from many clubs has beenn “Oh, the rain! Oh, the weather! We never had a chance to get the greens perfect.” Well Baker Hill was impeccable – every blade of grass from tee to green absolutely perfect. Yes, it can be done, and Baker Hill Bob did it: he stewarded the course right straight through the crappy weather without missing a beat. Baker Hill, along with Philly Cricket, was one of the two best conditioned golf courses we played this entire year thus far. Click here for the story. From the article:
“The course always looks fantastic, especially in the late afternoon or early morning when the shadows lengthen and dazzling sunrises and sunsets light the mountains and forest aglow with reds and golds. But it plays even better, all of Rees’s ferocious contours and undulations roaring to life and paying fast and firm. Best of all, it plays eminently fair.
‘Baker Hill rewards good golf and punishes bad golf, and that’s Rees’s talent, not mine,’ said a typically humble Turcotte. ‘Temptation is the greatest emotion in golf, and Rees lets you succeed or hang yourself. The green sites are breathtaking and challenging, but there is a safe way around as well. Rees is the true artist. All I do is keep a fresh coat of paint on her.'”
