Wellesley Country Club: Ross, Stiles, and Cornish in One Place

Wellesley Country Club sits on land 15 miles west of Boston that carries more history than the golf. The 66 acres off Wellesley Avenue served as a colonial poor farm before a group of local golfers leased it from the town in 1910 for $300 a year. They hired Donald Ross to lay out nine holes, his fifth commission after he arrived in Massachusetts from Scotland in 1898. Seven of those original Ross holes are still in the routing today, although none of the original Ross greens survive.

Three Architects, One Course

Ross was just the start. In 1927 the club hired Wayne Stiles, a Greens Committee member who lived on Clarke Road right next to the current seventh tee, to revise the course. Stiles drew up an 18-hole expansion plan, but a land deal with Babson College fell through and the project stalled for decades.

The expansion finally happened in 1960, when the club bought 38.7 acres from the Academy of the Assumption. Geoffrey Cornish designed the nine new holes, and they opened in 1961. Cornish came back in 1966 to design four more holes after another land purchase, finishing the layout that plays today. Wellesley is one of only two New England clubs with work from Ross, Stiles, and Cornish on the same property. Brian Silva tweaked the course in 1993, and Craig Schreiner did more refinement in 1999.

By the Numbers

The full course measures 6,903 yards from the Black tees, playing to a par 70. Course rating is 74.3 and slope is 134. That is a real test by any measure. The Blue tees pull back to 6,679 yards with a 73.3 rating and 132 slope, and the White tees stretch 6,338 yards at par 71 (rating 71.0, slope 129). Forward options include a 5,567-yard combo set and a 4,730-yard Gold tee for shorter hitters.

The shift from par 70 at the tips to par 71 from most other tees tells you something about the routing. Wellesley is short on long par 5s and long on demanding par 4s, the kind of layout where holding the green from the fairway matters more than overpowering the hole. Club member Phil Fecteau holds the competitive course record at 64.

A U.S. Open Footnote

In 1913 a 20-year-old Brookline native named Francis Ouimet played two rounds at Wellesley and shot 88 each time. One week later he became the first amateur to win the U.S. Open, beating Harry Vardon and Ted Ray in an 18-hole playoff at The Country Club in Brookline. Club lore says Ouimet credited the Wellesley rounds with helping him get the bad shots out of his system. Arnold Palmer has played the course over the years, and Wellesley hosted the 101st Massachusetts Open Championship in 2010, won by Florida mini-tour veteran Jimmy Hazen at six under.

Beyond the Course

Wellesley operates as a private members' club with about 700 member households. The clubhouse is new construction, a 53,825 square-foot building completed in 2008 that replaced the converted poor-house structure that had served since 1910. Inside you get the pro shop, multiple dining rooms (including an English-style pub nook), and event space that handles weddings and corporate outings.

Other facilities include eight tennis courts, a swimming pool added in 1953, an indoor tennis facility built in 1969, paddle tennis courts from 1977, and a fitness center that opens at 5 a.m. Walking the course is allowed, and the routing rolls naturally over the same ridges Ross worked with on his original nine.

The Bottom Line

Wellesley sits in a small group of Boston-area courses where you can play essentially the same routing the original architect saw, run through revisions by two more of New England's most prolific designers. The 6,903-yard par 70 layout with 134 slope from the tips holds up against any modern test, and the Ross DNA still shows on those seven original holes.

Want to see every tee, every yardage, and every hole at Wellesley Country Club? Pull up the full Wellesley scorecard on Stymie before your next round in the Boston area.