‘Where Everybody Knows Your Name’

Amesbury Golf & CC requires accuracy, patience and a sense of humor

By Don Staruk

Accuracy, not distance, should be the priority to get a good score at Amesbury Golf & Country Club, a par-35, nine-hole semi-private course located in Amesbury. But for most members, just getting off the first tee safely takes precedence in order to avoid a ribbing from the peanut gallery hanging out on the clubhouse porch.

“Hit a bad drive off the first and you get catcalls and whistles and everything else,” said long-time member Jim (The Lithuanian) Lisauskas, otherwise known as “Lit.”

But it’s all in good fun, which seems to be in plentiful supply around Amesbury.

“The character of the club is the people,” said another veteran member of the club, Dick Leblanc of Newburyport. “It’s a very, very, very friendly golf course. Everyone knows everyone. You can go up there and play with absolutely anyone. A perfect stranger is welcomed right at the tee. I’m up there because of the people.”

The club’s “couple of hundred” members pay $1,100 for unlimited play, preferential tee times, a handicap card, $100 in food credits at the restaurant and a very active members-only tournament schedule.

“That’s the best part about this place,” Lisauskas added. “There’s always tournaments going on. They just run all kinds of tournaments for the membership on the weekends.”

But Amesbury does not restrict when non-members can get on the course, as is the case at some semi-private clubs. Amesbury has a pro shop and snack bar in the clubhouse, and a separate bar and short-order restaurant that seats about 95 people. The course averages about 35,000 rounds a year, according to owner and operator Albin “Butch” Mellon.

Built in 1923, the course was designed by Wayne Stiles.

“He was an understudy of Donald Ross,” said Mellon, whose father, Albin S. Mellon, bought the course in 1961. Butch Mellon began working at the course summers before graduating from the University of New Hampshire in 1960, and has been at it full-time ever since. “I went to college for forestry and fish and game actually, however, the background helped me a lot. I’ve been doing this for 45 years.”

Butch now runs the course with his son, Mike Mellon, the course superintendent. The family connection doesn’t end there. Butch’s daughter, Maria, works part-time doing the books.

Greg Parker, the club professional and a 20-year employee, manages the pro shop and tournament programs.

?I started back in high school and haven’t left yet,? Parker said.

Not too much has changed since the original design and, despite the friendliness of members, once your ball is in play the course gets a bit more serious.

Amesbury is only 2,939 yards from the whites (3,156 yards from the blue tees the second time around), but one reason accuracy is key is that an errant shot will almost always get you in trouble.

“It’s a good, honest course,” said 20-year member Paul Plourde. “What’s nice about this course is you can’t go off from one fairway to another fairway. If you go off the fairway you are in deep [stuff]. This is a place where you have to place your ball.”

Only the first four holes have out of bounds on the right, but every hole has woods right and left.

In the last few years, the Mellons rebuilt the first, fifth and ninth greens, making each slightly larger than the original versions. The ninth green, which was just completed for this season, now has a hump in front that makes it that much more difficult to roll a shot up onto it, further complicating an approach shot that is already coming straight uphill.

“The greens will drive you nuts because there are so many subtle breaks in them,” Butch Mellon said. “You can make bogey and double bogey real quick around these greens.”

The greens are not fast compared to many of the North Shore’s private courses, but golfers who are used to public courses will likely find the ball running on them until they get used to Amesbury’s carpets.

A quick tour

The par-4, 381-yard first hole makes for a dramatic start, dropping about 100 feet from tee to fairway on your drive. You want to go over the large boulder in the center of the fairway, to the area of second, flatter rock.

“I like the first hole as good as any,” said Butch Mellon. “It’s a pretty hole. You’ve got to keep it in play on the first shot. Second shot—a nice drive gives you 120 to 150 yards in. But you’ve got to be pretty accurate. The green is a challenge to putt at times.”

The second hole is a fairly tame, 170-yard par-3. But woods close left, a pond short and to the right of the green, and trouble long can take you out of play fast. The second time around, this is hole No. 11 and is a much different hole played from the blue tees. Instead of 170 yards, it becomes 230 yards, which brings everything in that much tighter. And, an east wind off the ocean just a few miles away will make holes No. 1 and No. 2/11 play much longer.

On the par-4, 349-yard third hole, don’t go through the fairway on the right; long-ball hitters need to draw the drive or use less club.

The straight, 309-yard, par-4 fourth has no real worries except for a very small green with woods close left and behind it.

On the par-5, 524-yard, fifth hole, keep the drive up top; once over the hill, everything runs hard left downhill. Also, anything in the woods to the right, if it doesn’t roll out, will make you waste a shot getting back in play as the hole bends around to the right.

The second shot will run left downhill. Long-ball hitters can reach in two if they can keep the drive in play.

Parker likes the fifth.

“You’ve got a chance to reach in two, and if you get into trouble, it’s easier to make up for a shot on a par 5,” he explained.

The par-4 sixth hole has two greens. The original one is a slight dogleg across a stream, but reachable at a downhill 240 yards.

?With the modern equipment, it’s pretty easy to drive the front green,? added Butch Mellon.

That’s why in the 1970s they built a back green, which makes this a full dogleg right with a carry over water to get to the green. Lay up on the drive with a fairway wood or an iron left of the fairway bunkers and cart path, and you have 130 to 150 yards into the back green. This is Butch Mellon’s least favorite hole to play.

“I really don’t like No. 6 in the summertime, because if the ball doesn’t stop, it can run into the water.” Last year, Yankee Magazine called No. 6 one of the testiest holes around, according to Mellon.

Another change from the original design was on the par-4, 365-yard seventh hole.

“The seventh hole is the No. 1 stroke hole,” said another member, Bob Knox. “It used to be No. 5, the par-5, then they moved the tee back on No. 7.”

“A power fade off the tee is the shot,” Mellon said of the seventh, as this hole bends around to the right.

On the par-3, 162-yard eighth, “just clear the pit,” Mellon said of the low ground and shrubs running between the tee and cart path.

And finally, we come back to the ninth, a 380-yard, par-4 that runs you back up the hill you came down on the first. A good tee shot will bring you to the base of the hill, leaving you a blind, 160-yard shot up to the green. (According to some members, “the best spring water in the world” can be found in the woods behind the ninth tee.)

“I think the 9th hole is the toughest hole on the golf course,” Parker said. “It’s 380 to 395 [yards]. The safe play is a 3 or 4 iron off the tee to the bottom of the hill. That leaves you 160 to 170 yards uphill, all carry. And it’s a blind shot uphill to the green. Up until last year, there were a lot of undulations in the green, so we’ll have to see how it plays this year with the new green.”

The course record at Amesbury is 30 for nine holes and 63 for 18. But those scores were many years back, before many of the trees that are now significant obstacles were planted or grown, Mellon explained. He should know since he has one of the two 30s. Wayne Fournier has the other. Mellon shot a 30 in the late 1980s while playing with Fournier in the foursome.

“I cleaned up on the skins, and I missed a putt on No. 8 for a birdie,” Mellon remembered. “I was just stiffing the pin all day.”

A couple of years later, Fournier, with Butch Mellon playing in the foursome, matched it. Bob Drew has the 63.

“I don’t think anyone’s shot better than 33 lately; 68 for 18,” said Mellon, who at 65 years old still shoots to a 5-handicap on his home course.

Nick Crovetti of Amesbury, “a college boy,” according to Mellon, is one of the dominant players on the course today. Clint Syvenski, who plays to a 1 or 2 handicap, is the current club champion. Sixteen-year-old Colby Wollitz is the Junior Champion.

But you don’t have to be a champion to have a good hole or a good round at Amesbury.

Wayne’s father, Romeo Fournier, a 30-year Amesbury member and former general manager of the North Shore Weeklies newspaper chain, says No. 11 is his favorite hole.

“Very challenging. You make 3 there, you’ll think you made a birdie,” Fournier said. “No. 4 is probably the easiest,” said Knox, and “Lit” agrees.

?Even if you miss your drive, you’ve still got a short iron in. All you’ve got to do is put it in play,? said Lisauskas, a 3- to 4-handicapper.

“And in the fall, when the leaves turn, this is one of the prettiest holes, this and the fifth.”

The 17th (the 8th) is member Sonny Boutin’s favorite hole. “I’ve got two hole-in-ones on 17, so that’s my favorite,” he rationed.

Member Frank Lagasse favors No. 3. The reason? “I birdie that one all the time,” he smiled.

Butch Mellon takes it all in.

“Golf courses are the most unique game boards in the entire world,” he said. “There are no two alike. Tough golf courses, you think your way around them, then you have to perform. I think golf courses are fascinating.”

Greens fees are $16 for 9 holes, $27 for 18 weekdays, and $18 and $30 weekends. Tee times are required seven days a week. Leagues are only on Mondays from 4 to 6 p.m. and Wednesdays after 3:30 p.m. The club has about 40 junior members, who have their own tournaments. For tee times, call (978) 388-5153.