The Super-Privates: CAPECOD’S HIDDENGEMS
By Jeff Blanchard

Pop quiz, sports fans:
Name a private Cape Cod
golf course on an island
reached by a two-lane bridge
with a gatehouse and a guard
who takes names.

Answer: It’s a trick. Aficionados of the
local golf scene know that Oyster
Harbors fits the bill. But there’s another
correct answer – the Great Island Golf
Course,a beach-hugging links course on
the family-owned, sparsely developed
enclave that shoots off the Sound side of
West Yarmouth (not to be confused with the Great Island in Wellfleet, which would also be a great place to put a course, with its wraparound waterfront views and multitudinous elevations).

The Great Island facing Nantucket – a mile or so south of the Great Island Tattoo Parlor on Route 28, straight down a street lined by summer cottages and the like, and into another world altogether - is a more private affair than even the exclusive Oyster Harbors.

It is true that both Cape locations are Home Sweet Home to people from the tippy-tippy-top of the food chain. It is true that people on Osterville’s island get to play golf at an uber-exclusive course designed by Donald Ross.It is also a fact that Oyster Harbors is one of the Cape’s most desirable addresses, on par with any of the well-hedged neighborhoods of Chatham, or the big-window perches on the hilltops of Provincetown and Truro, or among the antique Greek Revivals aging gracefully in the shade of the Old Kings Highway in Barnstable. But a person can more or less buy their way into the Oyster Harbors scenario.It might take some years, but technically, if not mathematically, it is possible to purchase a home there and perhaps join the club if that’s the sort of thing you wish to do – for the golf, or for the restaurant,or for any other reason.

Not on Great Island,where it is strictly a birth or marriage thing. (How I got there,I’d rather not say.)

And here lies one of several courses that don’t pop up on any of the Cape Cod golf maps, not in any category – public, private,semi-private,or whatever.These are courses that fly completely under the radar of public notice,not necessarily by design but because people with golf courses on their property simply have no need to call attention to them.These folks aren’t in the golf business; they are in the business of living right.

They own courses in the woods, or at the end of a long driveway, or in the backyard hidden by slope and foliage. We’re not talking about your dentist with the Astroturf putting green and the little chipping area. We’re not talking about your builder-friend who lives on an old cranberry bog you can hit balls into, although all these things are nice and we wish we had them.

We’re talking about real golf courses, or at least real holes. Even one-holers would qualify if they offered several different ways of playing them. One one-holer that comes to mind is on an old estate where the very lovely owners had a tee box, a rolling fairway, a flag-stick and a separate putting green with those ball-removing pins. But they let the green go to garden, and so now it is just a place to practice your irons, more of a plush driving range than a playable course.

Among the super-privates we have played over the years on Cape Cod are the Great Island Golf Course, the Stonybrook Brewer Links in Brewster, and the Ring short course in East Orleans.Of those three,the Great Island Golf Course is the best,but certainly not the only one that satisfied our curiosity.

The golf course on Great Island is actually better than some of the courses that one could PAY to play on the Cape.

It is a real 10-hole course. The only things lacking at this course,when compared to an executive course on the beaten path, are a clubhouse, tee times,

These are courses that fly completely under the radar of public notice,

electric carts and all the other frou-frou involved with the game – including other golfers. Great Island also has several features that can make it seem like a pubic golf course, just one from another era: scorecards, pins and cups, marked tee boxes and a discernible difference between fairway and green. These are the common denominators of all the Super-privates on the Cape.

Great Island GC is a par 32 measuring 1,248 yards from the blue tees. The No. 1 handicap hole is No.5,a 159-yard par three that plays into treacherous prevailing winds with unforgiving long grass on both sides that can make looking for a ball seem like a fool’s errand.Probably the best way to find one would be to do what the great champion Margaret Curtis used to do at the Essex County Club 75 years ago, which was to get down on the ground and roll around until she felt it.

The easiest hole, according to the handicap rankings on the scorecard, is the 10th at only 56 yards, short but pressure-packed if the match depends on it.There are two par 4’s,No.2 at 167 yards and No.4 at 148 yards.Most of the holes play straight, with no artificial encumbrances and few troublesome branches.The course is surrounded by a bunker, which is sometimes referred to by golfers as a "beach". In this case, it really is.It is short in length and long in character,cut from the classic mold of a links course in the Scottish Highlands, and every bit as natural. The tees and greens were built, but pretty much everything else is as it was found,minus some trees.

"USGA rules apply except as modified by the following local rules," says the Great Island scorecard, a drawing of a stone lighthouse on the property as its logo."Preferred Lies:A preferred lie may be taken in any improved area through the green. Hazards: Water on holes 2, 8 and 9 are to be played as water hazards. Tees: Tees must be used on all teeing surfaces."

Over at the backyard course in Brewster, the rules are at once more elaborate and more forgiving. Handicaps are not allowed at Stonybrook Brewer, and so there is no use in ranking the holes. Mulligans are prohibited. Soft cleats are required, and it is good form to park a safe distance from the 6th green.

On the generous side, players may improve their lies up to six inches.There is no penalty for a ball lost in the fairway, and a ball within one club length of the cup is counted as being one stroke from in.

"Other rules as per USGA Handbook 1938 edition," states the scorecard, emblazoned with the club logo – a three-masted ship that was sailed on the seven seas by the Captain Foster who built the house here in 1820. A copper model of that ship can be found spinning above the barn as a weathervane, and the logo appears as well on the flags and on the hats that are awarded each year to the winner of the Stonybrook Brewer Links Summer Invitational.

Like the course on Great Island,the digs at this place in Brewster aren’t bad either.A sprawling,white-shingled Cape with green shutters and lots of established plantings, the Foster house oozes history and has enjoyed a series of attentive owners over the years, up to and including its current occupants, Henry and Suzanne Foster.

The Fosters had been splitting their time between an antique home they had restored in Newport and a condo in Maui, when they got a call from the Brewers, the people who owned the Foster house in Brewster. The Brewers were ready to sell their home and move. Did the Fosters, who had no previous experience living on the Cape, want to pour their energies into another major move and renovation? Not really, but neither could they resist,so they decided to make the old family homestead theirs, and they have done an amazing job bringing it into the 21st century without tinkering with any of its 19th century craftsmanship.

As president of the Brewster Historical Society, Hank Foster is one golfer who believes in tradition and in sharing a healthy reverence for the past. And so does his wife, for that matter. Her areas of expertise have something to do with the Orient, music, antiquities and some other facets of human history and culture that were too hard to grasp during a quick tour of the house.Neither of them could hide their enthusiasm when we came to the wooden box that held a brittle stack of navigational maps left behind by Captain Foster 150 years ago.

They also made a point to share credit for the course with the workers who keep it in tip-top shape and with Van Brewer, who originally built it along with friend and consultant E. F. Shaw. Hank Foster volunteered that he was actually more of a tennis player than a golfer when he first moved in, but, between aging legs and the call of the backyard,his tennis game got eclipsed.

What Stonybrook Brewer Links has that might surprise some people who have never played one of these at-home golf courses is a map on the scorecard.This is helpful in getting around the holes in order, if not exactly necessary to know where you’re going,since you can pretty much see all the holes at once,not unlike the Cotuit Highground.

Two holes share a tee,two of the cups do double duty, and although a bunch of the holes crisscross, it’s something you don’t notice since there’s no one else on the course to worry about.

The most recent Stonybrook Brewer Links champion’s golf hat was awarded to Walter Babcock in August, after he and Foster,a gentleman in the finest golf tradition,finished the nine in a tie,went back to the ninth tee for a sudden death playoff, and knocked it around until Babcock’s ball went in.He prevailed over three fellow retirees, a semi-retired executive headhunter, a nurse, a high school golf coach and a "golf writer." It was Babcock’s first hat, and he deserved it with his 33 on the par 27 (where the course record is 31.)

A cranberry bog before they figured out what to do with the property, the Stonybrook Brewer Links measures an estimated 1,060 yards, with 155 as the longest hole and 60 as the shortest. That’d be the ninth, a wedge from the hedge-guarded shoulder of Stony Brook Road over some sort of grove that provides shelter for the Fosters’ teahouse. The hole is called Aunt May’s Maple for the tree that overhangs the

It’s a few holes of well-manicured perfection around a house in the middle of East Orleans, hidden at the end of a driveway.

tee.(Hank likes the names to correspond to the teeing area.) Tea House is the name of the first hole. The other seven are Elevated, Bird House, Old Oak Stump, Jonathan’s Knoll, English Oak, Cornfield and Woods Trail.

Between Hank’s appreciation for the property, Suzanne’s gardening abilities, and their combined sense of style, this would be a pretty place even if it weren’t a golf course. But fortunately it is, complete with marked tee boxes, double-cut greens, a ball-washer, a cleat cleaner and a welcoming post-round atmosphere in the antique barn where players can tally their scores,puff a cigar and sip a cool summer beverage - at least on tournament day.

The third course on our list of Super-privates is another place that makes you feel like you have died and gone to heaven. It’s a few holes of well-manicured perfection around a house in the middle of East Orleans,hidden (like all the others) at the end of a driveway.

Yes, it’s a big property, but getting around is made easier by the apple red golf cart with front and back seats. On top of the usual flagsticks, ball-washers, scorecards, tee boxes and the other golf accoutrements, this course also features two hazards - a man-made bunker at the 90-yard 1st and a pond at the 120-yard 2nd. They add to the feeling of authenticity, not to mention the jolt of relief that comes over you right after you hit one into the water and realize that there’s not a soul around to see it.

THIS COURSE IS ABOUT NAMES:

• Jim and Raina Ring own it.

• The holes are called Brighton, Blake and Brelayne, after the three Ring daughters, who span in age from elementary school to college.

• Bruce Hirschberg, the talented golfer, consulted on the course construction along with his work building the house.

• Chuck McKenna takes care of the greens,along with his other landscaping endeavors.

• Laura Weeks tends to the flowers in this regular Garden of Eden.

• The course is a nice complement to Beach Lanes,the bowling alley they have inside their home.

• And the next time you see this property written up in a magazine,it’ll be the handsome glossy Architectural Digest, which is planning a big feature with lots ofpictures(so much for Super privacy).

Do you know of any other Super-privates? Please let us know.We’ll be right over.