Southern Accent

The sandy environs of Dunegrass Golf Course in Old Orchard Beach provide New England golfers a unique southern-golf experience

By Gary Trask

The 75-minute drive from the North Shore to Dunegrass Golf Course brings you by some of the state of Maine’s most popular destinations. Exit signs for Old Orchard Beach, the shopping outlets in Kittery and the popular Portland Waterfront - the kind of places that drip with a Maine flavor - catch your eye as you make your way north on the Maine Turnpike.

But once you take a right onto Wild Dunes Way and make your way through the entrance of this pristine public course, a transformation begins to take place. The shades of Maine slowly fade to black and the look and feel of a southern surrounding begins to take shape.

“It’s almost like you forget you’re in Maine while you’re here,” admits Ted Vallee, the club’s head professional.

This overwhelming atmosphere isn’t by coincidence. Dan Maples, a world-renowned designer with deep Southeastern roots, is the mastermind behind Dunegrass. Before Dunegrass, Maples’s design skills had never ventured into the Northeast. And if it weren’t for a site visit to this 300-acre property back in 1989, the North Carolina native’s brand most likely would have remained in the south.

“Maples kind of had to be coerced into coming up to take a look. But once he got here, he was convinced that he could build an amazing golf course,” remembers Dunegrass owner Ron Boutet. “He saw the elevation changes, the forest pines, the oaks and the soil. He knew that he was going to be able to create a course with a southern feel, which is what he does best.”

The end result came in 1998, when Dunegrass opened its fairways and allowed New England golfers to get a taste of a southern style course without stepping onto an airplane.

Dunegrass, however, has much more to offer than a Pinehurst-like ambiance. Playing conditions at the course, which is set less than two miles from the Atlantic Ocean, are flawless.

“It’s like anything else, the time you put into something is what you get out of it and we take the conditions here very seriously,” says Dunegrass head superintendent Mark Franz with conviction. “Our owner is very supportive. He wants a high-end golf course and he’s not afraid to put money into our budget to allow us to do our job. There’s no secret formula.”

But while there may not be a hidden method of maintenance going on at Dunegrass, the club does benefit from what Mother Nature was nice enough to provide. Because of its proximity to the ocean, the course was built on a back dune system. The entire property is underlined with sand, with as much as eight feet of it underneath the fairways in some pockets. When the course was built, the loam was stripped and it was planted on sand, which provides a couple of distinctive features.

First, the course is blessed with incredible drainage.

“We can get two inches of rain dumped on the course and within four hours it’s all gone,” explains Boutet, who grew up just down the road in Saco.

Secondly, divots like the ones you rip up when you “chunk” a shot at your local course are scarce at Dunegrass.

“It’s easy to pick your ball clean off the fairway because it’s a very clean swing,” adds Franz, who is in his first year as head super after serving as an assistant last season. “You can really get the ball up in the air because the divot isn’t restraining it. And if you want to take a divot, you can and your ball will get some serious action on it, just like the pros do.”

Another beneficiary of the course’s conditions are the putting greens. To a man, if you ask members of the Dunegrass staff what they’re most proud of or what they hear the most praise about from their customers, it’s the greens.

“You get a true roll, which doesn’t happen at a lot of courses,” says Director of Golf Ron Merrett. “If you read your putt right, and putt it a the correct speed, you can bet that it’s going in the hole.”

Easier said than done, however. While the putting surfaces are indeed faultless, they are also frighteningly fast. According to Franz, the Stimpmeter on Dunegrass’s greens normally reads around 10 or 11. If a tournament is being played, Franz and his staff aren’t afraid to bump it up to 12. For point of reference, the PGA Tour typically has its greens set at 12, or even 13 during final rounds.

“They’re the best greens I’ve ever played on,” adds Vallee, 31, who is in his fourth year as a pro at Dunegrass after stints at the private Bald Peak Colony Club in New Hampshire and seven years in Vero Beach and Naples, Fla. “People come in all the time after their round, raving about the greens. It certainly gives you a taste as to what the pros have to deal with on a regular basis.”

The greens, in effect, are Franz’s pride and joy.

“Greens are the bread and butter of any superintendent,” says Franz, who added that because of the sand base, the greens dry at a rapid pace and require a great deal of water. “It’s how you are judged by your peers and your customers. We spend a couple hours a day just on the greens. It takes up a significant amount of our budget. But the end result is what I think the golfers want.”

Getting to those greens is also a test of the golfer’s ability and mental capacity. Positioning your shot off the tee is crucial at Dunegrass, as the second shot often makes or breaks your chance to score. GPS systems on all of the carts are a tremendous aid to newcomers. Also, four sets of tees allow for golfers of all abilities to have a chance at putting up decent numbers at the course, which measures 6,602 yards from the tips with a slope of 137 all the way down to 4,728 and a slope of 113 from the front tees.

“It’s a thinking man’s golf course,” Merrett says. “You can’t just step up on the tee and pull out your driver. Most holes will penalize you if you’re not in good position.”

Take, for example, the 424-yard (from the back tees), par-4, third hole, which doglegs to the left. If you have enough distance off the tee, your approach shot to the bountiful, but sloping, green must carry a large ravine and a pot bunker, placed to the front-right of the green. Shorter hitters off the tee are probably more apt to lay-up in front of the ravine on their second shot and beg for a bogey.

Calculated tee shots like this are commonplace. The par-4, fourth fairway is guarded on the left by a large waste bunker with emerging dune grass columns. The same goes for the par-5, 478-yard, 15th, which features another dune grass-laden waste bunker in the fairway as well as a ravine in front of the tee boxes.

The par-5, 548-yard 18th is a favorite of Vallee, who is also fond of the island-green, par-3 17th hole. The 18th provides a fine finishing touch with water guarding the tee boxes and a stream and bunkers bordering the length of the right side of the fairway. The puny green is protected by bunkers and an approach shot that finds the beach here will likely draw a rise from the crowd on the deck of The Fairways Restaurant, which overlooks the green and is a perfect spot to cap off a round with its extended menu and up-scale facade.

Hints of construction are perceptible at Dunegrass. This year, the ancient nine-hole Old Orchard Beach course, which opened during World War II and was intertwined with the Dunegrass layout, has been closed. By next season, Maples’ original 18-hole plan will be in place, with new holes at 10 and 11. The Old Orchard property will be replaced by real estate, adding to the numerous luxury townhouses and single-family homes already present at Dunegrass. There are currently close to 600 sites with almost 250 of them already developed.

Boutet says that the allure of living at Dunegrass is like anything else in the real estate business.

“It’s all about location,” he says. “I think in the long run we’re going to be a destination point. It’s just so easy to get here. We have a turnpike access road, we’re 12 minutes from the Portland airport and Boston is about 90 minutes away by car.

“Dunegrass is something that I’m very proud of. I never wanted to create anything that was pretentious. We wanted a comfortable place where people could enjoy a great golfing experience.

“We keep the prices up a bit (prime season rates are $79 for 18 holes on weekends and holiday mornings from June 17 through Sept. 11 and $59 on weekdays during the same time period) because we’re not interested in having 25,000 rounds a year played here. We want to maintain an up-scale, high-end club. And I think that’s exactly what we have done.”