On the Rise

Thanks to new management and some striking views, Mount Hood Golf Club has come a long way since its days as a ski zone

By Nathan Fox

Mike Farrell, the head professional at Mount Hood Golf Club in Melrose, is not a man prone to understatement.

In 10 minutes on the oak-shaded patio outside of Mount Hood’s bargain-priced bar and grill, Farrell compares his municipal course to the classic layout at Myopia Hunt Club, argues that there is not a single hole at Mount Hood that one wouldn’t want to play “again and again,” and boasts of the course’s “basically private club conditions.”

“This course has as much character as any public course or private course in the state,” Farrell says.

All bold statements, but none of them precisely true. Still, Mount Hood anticipates a whopping 40,000 to 45,000 rounds in 2004, nearly doubling the figure from just two years ago. North Shore golfers must be rediscovering Mount Hood in droves for a reason. As it turns out, each of Farrell’s wild-sounding claims contain a nugget of truth.

Mount Hood’s resurrection can be attributed to Tom and Phil Friel’s Golf Management Company, which took over the City of Melrose lease in April of 2003. The course, along with its beautiful stone clubhouse, was built in the 1930s as part of the New Deal’s Works Progress Administration (WPA). But, like WPA brethren George Wright and Franklin Park in Boston, both had fallen into disrepair over the years, due to budget cutbacks and increased competition from modern courses. Where others saw a beaten-down municipal, the Friels saw opportunity.

“We fertilized, fixed the irrigation system, sodded, rebuilt some tees, and cured some drainage problems,” says Tom Friel. “And we expanded some greens. A lot of the greens had become small just from people mowing and not watching out.”

Play Golf New England, (playgolfne.com), the website of Golf Management Company, calls Mount Hood “Boston’s Rediscovered Classic.”

“In the midst of a wooded 300-acre park 10 miles from the Zakim Bridge,” reads the website, “you’d think you’re in the heart of Vermont.”

That might be right, if it weren’t for the commanding views of the Boston skyline and surrounding areas. Mount Hood is, indeed, on a mountain. In the ’50s and ’60s a rope tow ski slope operated up and down the first fairway. Several tees are elevated, notably the rebuilt 12th. And above the eighth tee is Slayton Tower, which Farrell says was built by the previous property owner “just because he wanted a tower.”

“There’s a lot of folklore,” says Farrell, “but it wasn’t built to watch for the Germans, or to keep the British out of Boston Harbor.”

Walking up to the eighth tee, marveling at the tower looming above, players eagerly head toward a signpost, hoping for some information - folklore or otherwise. Instead, the sign offers an unexpected inducement to call ahead to the grillroom so that your order will be ready at the turn. A climb up the tower steps will leave visitors breathless, and the views themselves are also breathtaking.

Let’s evaluate Farrell’s claims in order, to see if we can tease out the truths underlying the sales pitch:

The Myopia comparison

Myopia Hunt Club, in South Hamilton, Mass., is a four-time host of the U.S. Open, and positively oozes character - so much so that Golf magazine, in a review of the nation’s top 100 “signature” holes, cited not just one signature hole at Myopia, but two. That’s one more than any other course on the list - and two more than Mount Hood.

Still, the Myopia comparison is not as myopic as it might initially seem. “Myopia’s not a long golf course,” says Farrell, “but you could spend a couple of days on those greens.” Mount Hood, at 5,631 yards from its par-69 blue tees, is also a short golf course with severely sloped putting surfaces. Furthermore, Mount Hood plays significantly longer than its yardage - another characteristic it shares with Myopia Hunt. How can a “short” golf course include 206, 217, 187, and 219-yard par-threes? The trick is this: the short holes all tend to be tight, doglegging par fours. Long hitters should play irons from several tees, and every driver left in the bag tacks significant virtual yardage onto your round.

Every hole has character

Many holes, sure. Every hole? Not quite. The second hole is a 349-yard, wide-open par four with a large, flat green. Farrell defends his “again and again” claim by saying that every golf course has an easy par-four second hole, “for a change of pace.” Despite Farrell’s insistence, the first, second, and 18th holes at Mount Hood are strictly vanilla. Most of the remaining holes do, however, have their own unique flavor. The fourth, for example, is a brutal three-shot par-five at 535 yards, dogleg left, climbing dramatically uphill. The entire hole, including the green, slopes severely from right to left. The 13th is just the opposite: a short par four, dramatically downhill, dogleg right. Both holes certainly pass the “again and again” test.

Private club conditions

By all accounts, Mount Hood’s new management has made dramatic strides in the upkeep of the old course. Chuck Perry, a 47-year-old CAT scan technologist from Chelsea who recently used a five-wood to ace the monstrous par-three seventh hole, says the course is “in great shape. Awesome. People that haven’t been there in 10 years don’t even recognize it.”

But an improvement in course conditions, even a drastic improvement, does not mean that Mount Hood isn’t still, happily, a work in progress. Steve Perry of Peabody, witness to Chuck’s hole-in-one but no relation, remembers how bad the conditions at Mount Hood used to be. “Literally in the past we would go to Mount Hood because it was the only course where you could walk on at 7 a.m. on the weekends,” he says. “There was nobody there. Just burnt greens, gravel tees, and tire tracks on the fairways.”

Today, all 18 greens at Mount Hood have a lustrous cover of grass. Superintendent Bert Fredrick, formerly of Vesper Country Club, is enlarging the tees, which were initially too small to carry the burden of heavy play, and has the fairways mostly smooth. Mount Hood no longer feels like a burnt-out muni. But neither does it feel like a manicured private club. The greens are kept a hair on the shaggy side, both to keep them healthy and to compensate for their slope. Remember, Mount Hood was built in a time when greens were never cut as short as today’s standards.

Also several back tees, especially on longer par threes, are no longer being maintained as the club attempts to shorten some holes to improve the pace of play. Still, it’s a drastic improvement and it’s difficult to fault Farrell, who grew up playing at Mt. Hood, for his overexuberance. After all, Farrell remembers a time when the 11th tee was a cork pad, and the 12th tee was AstroTurf. Today, it’s an entirely different look.

Fredrick, someone with 50 years in the business of maintaining golf courses through harsh New England winters, isn’t as susceptible to overexcitement as Farrell. “We’re just doing the best we can with the money that’s available,” Fredrick says. “Time will tell.”

Mount Hood golfers, it seems, have busied themselves telling their friends as the tee sheet has been overflowing this summer. Golfers with time to kill certainly won’t mind heading to the new practice facility, which will reside high above the 12th hole when completed. The area, “standing on 80 feet of Big Dig,” according to staffer Ned Murray, will have a short driving range, a chipping area, and maybe even a practice green. The entire plateau was, indeed, created with excess from Big Dig construction and boasts million-dollar views of Boston and Revere Beach.

Murray, who has worked at the course since 1968, expressed his excitement for the new management. “These guys are the best thing that’s ever happened to Mount Hood,” he says.