OAK BLUFFS, Mass. — Farm Neck Golf Membership right here on Martha’s Winery has reopened following an intensive, unifying renovation from architect Mark Mungeam, whose work higher accentuates and refines the property’s sandy, seaside environs whereas opening up lengthy views over the salt-water Sengekontacket Pond.
“It’s no secret that the 2 nines at Farm Neck had been moderately dissimilar, as they had been constructed by totally different architects, 5 years aside,” says Mungeam, ASGCA, who’s been consulting to Farm Neck GC for greater than 20 years; he refashioned all 18 greens in 2012-13. “We agreed it was excessive time we bit the bullet, in the reduction of the forest obscuring the ocean views, and changed it with vegetation and dunes options indigenous to the island.
“On the similar time, we’ve added extra fairway turf on the market — practically all of it in widening the taking part in corridors. Farm Neck has all the time been one of the crucial picturesque programs within the nation, partially as a result of it’s a singular hybrid design on sandy, coastal terrain. That aesthetic we wouldn’t dare contact. In reality, we’ve doubled down by accenting every gap with sand and native grasses on the edges.”
Whereas formalized golf has been performed on this property since 1897, the primary 9 at Farm Neck GC opened in 1976. Designed by Mungeam’s former associate and mentor, the late Geoffrey Cornish, this unique loop was joined by one other, designed by Patrick Mulligan, in 1980. The mixed 18 was shortly hailed as that uncommon chook: a seaside, resort course each bit the aesthetic equal of any personal membership.
Farm Neck is, in reality, a semi-private membership with a various and vibrant membership. Within the U.Okay. model, the general public is welcome all 12 months spherical, even when members are likely to make tee instances moderately scarce in July and August.
“It will get fairly loopy right here in excessive summer time,” attests Basic Supervisor Tim Candy. “However a lot of the members will let you know: Martha’s Winery is actually wonderful within the shoulder seasons. It’s unhurried and uncrowded in Could and June. The golf course goes technicolor in September and October. We routinely play right here by Thanksgiving and past. It’s additionally value mentioning that lodging out listed below are much more cheap off season.
“Golfers perceive the stability that should be struck in resort areas like this one. The membership is dedicated to optimizing that stability, as evidenced by our funding on this renovation. Mark did a spectacular job. I’ve been right here virtually 50 years and the course has by no means appeared or performed this good.”
Mungeam’s refurbishment was each complete and ingenious. A whole bunch of miniature “Cape” pines had been eliminated, most of them changed with native areas that maximize taking part in width and vistas. All 18 tees had been rebuilt and your entire format successfully rebunkered. The course used to function 91 formal bunkers. Whereas that complete has been lowered by a 3rd, golfers will however expertise far extra sand. And scrub.
The most effective instance of this dynamic would be the third and fifth holes, which had been separated dozens of pine that had slowly overtaken a former sand pit. They’re all gone, changed by 120 yards of flamboyantly contoured, casual bunkering festooned with erosion-controlling, native vegetation. Such suave clearing additionally means the dramatic, picturesque 4th — a par-3 taking part in all the way down to the shores of Sengekontacket Pond (made well-known by the film, “Jaws”) — can now be loved by golfers on all three holes.
“The native space between 3 and 5 is the look we used to tug the 2 nines collectively stylistically,” explains Mungeam, who will take the gavel as president of the American Society of Golf Course Architects in October. “We created the identical shared, sand-and-scrub options between the eleventh, twelfth and sixteenth holes, for instance. Between 17 inexperienced and 18 tee, too.”
Candy and Mungeam singled out contractor Matt Staffieri for his precious enter in fashioning these naturalized areas. His agency, Hopkinton, Mass.-based MAS Golf Building, rebuilt the entrance 9 from autumn 2023 to spring 2024, then the again 9 from October 2024 to Could 2025. Superintendent Andrew Nisbet, assistant Ryan Carey and their crew additionally performed key collaborative roles in creating Farm Neck’s newly cohesive, naturalistic presentation.
“People like to speak about making issues which might be extra sustainable, however engaged on an island requires greater than speak,” the architect says. “Bringing sod to Farm Neck requires reducing it someplace, delivery it by truck to Wareham, offloading it to a different truck, then bringing that automobile throughout on the ferry. That’s costly and it makes use of an enormous quantity of vitality.
“At Farm Neck, we considerably lowered our sod imports by ‘flipping’ present turf. It is a large property, some 425 acres in all. We might determine native grasses alongside the perimeters of the course, take away it with a sod cutter, roll it up the place we may, put it on carts and transfer it to those new naturalized areas. We additionally saved and re-deployed each final little bit of fescue and bluestem from areas disrupted by the renovation. After we rebuilt the tees, we saved that bentgrass and used it to broaden the fairways — perhaps 10 acres’ value.
“Folks ask me what native grasses we used to construct these new areas. I don’t even know! There’s a number of fescue and little blue stem — the remaining we’d want a botanist to determine. But it surely’s native. We discovered it rising on web site, so we all know it’s going to thrive right here. Of late, the state of Massachusetts has additionally been very encouraging relating to restoring what it calls ‘sand-plain grassland habitat.’ That’s precisely what we’ve performed right here.”
A few of these grasses, together with the attractively sandy soil, are precisely what lured the ancients to this property 130 years in the past. Based on Farm Neck grounds committee chair and membership historian Jonas Peter Akins, the Cottage Metropolis Golf Membership opened for play in 1897, on this very property, primarily on what’s in the present day the again 9. By 1901, the prolific Scots architect Alex Findlay had expanded CCGC to 18 holes.
That August of 1901, the journal Golf and Garden Tennis reported: The very first thing that strikes the attention on reaching the course is the ocean, that bounds a variety of the holes; then… sand pits, for probably the most half pure, marshes, small ponds, rushes and coarse grass forming splendid hazards.
“I believe that’s quite a bit nearer to the place we’re in the present day, as a golf course, in comparison with 5 years in the past,” says Akins, who notes that CCGC underwent serial title adjustments and monetary difficulties earlier than being deserted within the early Nineteen Seventies. “Should you squint, you’ll be able to nonetheless make out a number of former gap corridors on the again 9. However I like the truth that native grasses — which were rising on and round these previous holes for 130 years — are once more an integral, pure function at Farm Neck.”
Be taught extra at https://www.farmneck.web/.
