So let’s have one more round of applause for the good folks at the McDonough Scholarship Foundation in New Hampshire. For over 55 years, they have awarded major scholarship funds to deserving students who love golf. This year, they gave out over $110,000 to 111 students. I am really grateful for the chance to give the keynote address – a slide show presentation on great golf architecture at public courses around the U.S. We discussed such great courses as Pacific Dunes, Black Mesa, Red Tail, World Woods, TPC Sawgrass, and Bethpage Black.
I also had a chance to tour Manchester Country Club – a gorgeous Donald Ross design with excellent greens,a strong routing, and wonderful rolling terrain. The clubhouse sits at one end of the property, and from the veranda as you look from left to right, you see the 18th, the 10th, the 1st, and the 9th fairways extend off into the distance, winding through native hardwoods, tumbling over several rugged swales, and criss-crossing a brook which murmurs through several holes.Â
While Donald Ross has his name on roughly 500 courses, but sometimes only did cursory work – sometimes even just mailing in a routing plan to a far-flung locale, in this case, Ross spent significant time on the property, walking it extensively to find the best routing for Manchester. As is typical of many great Ross courses, the two loops of nine holes intersect and criss-cross each other at points on the property. It’s not quite as pronounced as at Oakland Hills - which meanders brilliant all across the hurly-burly landscape – but Manchester has some hills here and there. A great fold in the land extends all across the property perpendicular to the axis made by the four holes near the clubhouse, so there are interesting blind tee shots on several key holes, including the showstopper of the course, the par-5 11th. Draw off the tee, then fade into the green, the drive must find a slot in the fairway and get some roll in for the player to carry a creek on the second shot if they are a short hitter, or to get to the green if your a long hitter. “I’ve played here for years and years, and I still have hit that green in two only three times in my life,” laments John “Wojo” Wolkowski, the sitting president of the McDonough Foundation, who is also a member of Manchester.  “And then the drama continues on the green, he exclaims both excitedly and respectfully, “it’s the most severe on the course. You get on the wrong tier and you’re fighting for a two-putt.” The green is a textbook example of a double plateau, with the levels of the green each distinct, separated by a series of swales. It’s not as pronounced in depth as say The Knoll Club (West) or Yale, but it’s clear that Ross intended to use the double plateau as a typical defense on a par-5…make one big green really feel like three small greens.
There are other great green features as well – a hogsback here, a false front there, severe rolls in other places, and even one green with a long, shallow swale as interior contour and a pronounced left to right pitch for micro-movement (or in this case macro-movement!)as well. Many of the greens are flanked by rugged, hairy chocolate drop mounds like you would find around the greens at Garden City Golf Club and many other courses built in the nineteen-oughts and tens. These mounds are not fake looking, uniform, or cookie cutter, but fit seamlessly with the flow of the green complexes.
The same creek that bisects eleven, serves as a cross hazard on several other holes as well. There’s a even a par-3 that requires a driver, an old school design feature imported from the great seaside courses of the U.K., and a staple of the repertoire of the classic architects.
Manchester is a gorgeous nature walk with your clubs. It’s an easy walk as opposed to the mountainous Oakland Hills, and feels even more eminently natural than both Oakland Hills and the excellent Rolling Green in Philly, another Ross masterpiece with outstanding greens, (which is also a must play for both Ross fans and architecture students). At Manchester, the tie-ins are so smooth, you can’t tell the demarcation between the rough and the natural surrounds, it’s sublime.
I wish I did a better job framing the picture, but again you see the three distinct tiers, up close this time.
Design: 5.5 – 6 stars (all ratings out of 7)
Natural Setting: 5.5
Conditioning: 6-6.5
Overall: 5.5-6. Donald Ross fans, parkland golf lovers, and architecture junkies should put this one on their must-play list. Unquestionably one of the best courses in N.H., and some think the best outright…and it’s not just members that think that way!
