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Golf on Cape Cod Course ReviewThe Country Club At New Seabury
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Photography by George Peet
Even before you see it, you probably know a few things about New Seabury that add excitement to your pre-round routine. You know it’s big (7,140 from the tips), that it used to be known as the “Blue Monster”, and that the resort course has been promoted as the “Pebble Beach of the East.”
Playing New Seabury for the first time feels something like meeting a film-star beauty in person for the first time. By the third hole you have died and gone to heaven, a place where your own lack of distance is rewarded as an opportunity to get more shots in during the round, to see more of the wild, blue yonder as it looks from the edge of Cape Cod.
Considering the hundreds of miles of shoreline around here and the number of golf courses — three is par for a town —there are too few opportunities on the Cape & Islands to stand on a green or a tee with the water lapping at the sand right next to you. A few of the country clubs have holes like that, but most public courses are located inland, offering at best a distant peek at the water, but not a lapping. The Ocean Course at New Seabury is the best of the breed on this score.
Like all the great opiates of history, golf is an experience best gauged by the mood right after, and the mood right after playing this world-class golf operation is bliss. New Seabury is one of those quintessentially Cape Cod places, like the Heritage Plantation in Sandwich, Commercial Street in Provincetown and the Kennedy Compound in Hyannisport, where you are transported to a mindset known as
vacation land, even if you come from two towns away.The resort offers every amenity imaginable — miles of private beachfront, swimming pools, tennis courts, its own upscale marketplace, elegant dining in the beachside Popponessett Inn (make reservations!) — and fine lodging in one-and two-bedroom villas with fully-equipped kitchens. Villas rent from $200-$275 nightly through mid-October and from $85-$125 thereafter.
This residential resort can resemble Hilton Head with its shoreline and it can resemble the TPC at Sawgrass with its island-esque holes, but it’s all Cape Cod — from the heart-rate-building drive between the Mashpee Rotary and the big, new clubhouse, to the swans around a dozen water-hazards, from the ocean to the contemporary Colonials that seem to be angling for a position to watch your recovery shot.
Originally designed by William Mitchell back in the early 1960’s, when the Chace family first set out to build the Cape’s biggest resort community, both Rees Jones and Marvin Armstrong have brought their considerable skills to a complete overhaul, a new-old 36. They fine-tuned The Ocean course and brought The Dunes up to the gold standard set by its Siamese sibling.
Along with the Atlantic, this 2,300-acre property is a showpiece that has attracted summer residents, second-homeowners and visitors from the world over. For three decades the resort was operated by Chris Burden, until tough economic times made it vulnerable to a sale in the late 1990s, when the billionaire Carl Icahn swooped in with a big check and a plan to complete the final stage of development.
While the build-out aspects of that plan are stalled at the regulatory review stage, workers have been busy just the same, building new facilities, improving the golf side and constructing new homes. What remains to be seen is whether the Cape Cod Commission will countenance Icahn’s vision for a 21st Century New Seabury, or whether it will go to the wall for a scaled-down completion of the original concept.
None of that behind-the-scenes turmoil is felt from the fairway, however. For the first quarter of the round, your brain is automatically adjusted to the sounds of the Sound, the squawk of distant, wind-surfing gulls, the hum of electric carts and the whip-whips of flapping flags, and your vision is refocused to take in the panoramic view of the world from the edge.
My diary of my first round at the Ocean Course began: “Whoa, 504 yards into the teeth of the wind coming straight off the ocean. Intimidating. Wait here for a second as a fox crosses the fairway. Good time to regroup. 150 left on third shot to the precipice. Right on!”
Wide fairways and big greens make the vagaries of weather a little easier to take, as does the sheer beauty of the setting. After No. 1, you turn right for a two-hole walk along the shore, both 400-yard 4’s that alternate between requiring a slight cut and a slight draw.
What you learn soon enough at New Seabury is that even getting on in regulation is no guarantee of a good score, because the greens have a lot of slope, which puts a premium on the approach shot, on reading the greens and hitting the first putts with just the right speed.
My favorite was No. 7, a dogleg right playing 426 with a wind blasting in and water all around the green. As Tiger says, “It sets up well to my eye,” thanks to a wide-open fairway and hazards in all the right places to provide targets but
not worries.
Trouble spots are found in other places, however. Take No. 15, a double-dogleg measuring 530 from the white tees. Next to one of the water hazards is a little plaque that honors a ball-hawker from yesterday named Jack Costa. It”s a nice touch, and it turns that feeling of dread that follows a splash into a feeling of kindness that you have just made a contribution in this gentleman’s memory.
On the May day when we played, the pin placements were tournament tough, as in Sunday’s round, and the early-season greens weren’t quite rolling as true as one would hope, but a tally in the 90’s made it all the more satisfying in retrospect.
The thought occurs that a fun first round at the Ocean Course is akin to a fun first date, a getting-to-know-you process that bodes well for the next meeting, but doesn’t necessarily answer all the questions; it plays with the mind without satisfying all the urges. You say to yourself, “Maybe on the next go-around I can score better, but oh, what a nice place to be for now.”
For a virtual tour of the layout, go to the New Seabury Web site. It really does capture the feeling of golf the way it was played by the shepherds 600 years ago — if they had lawnmowers.
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