Autumn in the Northeast is all about color where peak play is enhanced by neon-bright crimson, orange and yellow-clad trees, brilliant cobalt skies and crisp freshly-laundered air. Leaves drift down hiding your ball, crunch under your soft spikes. Kids are back in school and prices have dropped both on and off the fairways.

It starts around mid-September and hangs in there until the last leaf has dropped nudged by the first big news of frost usually by early November. This is a cool time to pack up your clubs and camera and head out for some of the best golf of the season.

Here are some places where you can extend your golfing season with spectacular golf on some of New England’s best courses.

 

Cape Es-Cape

South of Boston stuck out there like a giant fishhook in the ocean Cape Cod’s weather is moderated by the Gulf Stream so you can play golf almost all year long. With more than 40 courses in a relatively small area, you can stay in one place and play a different course each day —  good courses with carries over salt marshes, elevations, and ponds not to mention magnificent vistas burnished by the golden late afternoon sun and a bronzed seascape.

Prices are relatively inexpensive with comfortable accommodations and golf starting as low as $50 – often half the rate in high season. Great packages are available at Heritage House through  www.stayandplaycapecod.com

For local color Cranberry Valley Golf Course  in Harwich runs through  — not surprisingly —  cranberry bogs along with kettle holes, wetlands and woods. Designed by the legendary team of Cornish and Robinson, this is pure classic golf.  www.cranberrygolfcourse.comhe

While you’re there, catch the colorful Cranberry Harvest which take place through October. The Cape Cod Cranberry Growers’ Association has created a cranberry harvest trail guide to describing where and when. www.cranberries.org

     In Yarmouth you can play the two Cape Cod Sisters Bass River and Bayberry Hills designed by Silvia and Cornish, two great courses with a rich history. www.golfyarmouthcapecod.com Just down the road Sandwich Hollows Golf Club offers great golf with views of Cape Cod Bay www.sandwichhollows.com great packages are available through the Clarion Inn at www.clarioncapecod.com

Another classic with roll-up greens and undulating but gentle terrain, Bay Pointe Country Club at Buzzards Bay, was built in the 60s. Its most well known hole is #7, a par three with an island green. Several luxury homes lie on the perimeter of the fairways softened by tall birches making for good fall color. Fall fees of $19-$30 (down from $27-$37) represent a great deal.  www.baypointecc.net

Wetlands turn bronze and late afternoon shadows play across the fairways at Farm Neck Golf Club four miles out to sea in Oak Bluffs on Martha’s Vineyard. The pro shop is not fancy, the members’ locker rooms and restaurant are unpretentious, but the quality of the course is understated upper crust, winding through meadows and marshes revealing the deep blues of Vineyard Sound. Beautifully honed by Cornish, Robinson and Mulligan, Farm Neck may lull you with wide landing areas, but don’t let that fool you. Water comes into play on half the holes, wind threatens on many occasions and treacherous bunkers are penal.  www.farmneck.net

An October package includes one night accommodation at Bayside Resort, golf at Farm Neck with a cart, breakfast and round trip ferry transportation priced from $128 to $138 for two. www.baysideresort-hotel.com

Brian Silva’s Captain’s Golf Courses, Port and Starboard in Brewster which have enjoyed high ratings on the New England scene

Also offering good deals for fall play are Quashnet Valley Country Club in Mashpee which slides over the river and through the woods – on hole #9 your drive has to carry on the fly over the Quashnet River requiring pinpoint accuracy (www.quashnetvalley.com);  Little Harbour Country Club in Wareham, an 18 hole executive course (www.littleharborcountryclub.com); and four courses in centrally located Yarmouth (www.yarmouthcapecod.com)

 

Landing Lights

When the Pilgrims landed in Plymouth carving the date, 1620, into a rock, the sticks they brought were not nine irons, but more likely kindling and building materials. That didn’t stop the game from finally finding its way across the pond to Massachusetts. Today there are dozens of courses stretching from Boston to the Cape. In the Plymouth area Southers Marsh which winds its way through cranberry bogs is a great play with a fantastic layout. www.southersmarsh.com

 

Known for its superb maintenance and good value, Poquoy Brook Golf Club in Lakeville just west of Rt. 495, gets high marks, especially from fans of course architect, Geoffrey Cornish who designed it in 1962. Although not considered hilly, elevated tees facilitate carries over water and a few sensible dog legs add to the interest.  (www.poquoybrook.com)

Granite Links Golf Club at Quarry Hills has major gravitas. A private membership club with some access to the public, it was voted by Golf Digest in the “Top Ten Best New Upscale Golf Courses in the Country” and named to their list of “100 Greatest Golf Courses in America” where the public can play. Granite Links is strategically located in Quincy just seven miles south of Boston so you can catch views of the skyline as you play the 27 holes of links-style golf while enjoying stunning fall color from the trees all around. Granite outcroppings are evidence that this site was once actively mined. A handsome clubhouse with a Tavern and restaurant sits on a hill overlooking the 18^th green and water-filled quarry. (www.granitelinksgolfclub.com)

Just off the Cape the Acushnet River Valley Golf Course designed by Brian Silva (1998), gives you a combo links and forest experience (www.golfacushnet.com) while Crosswinds Golf Club, the newest public course with 27 holes in Plymouth (www.golfcrosswinds.com) and Olde Scotland Links in Bridgewater a certified Audubon Cooperative Sanctuary with lots of grasses and wetlands, add to the attractive options in this part of the state. (www.oldescotlandlinks.com).

In Rehoboth try Hillside Country Club (www.hillsidecountryclub.com) and Rehoboth County Club (www.rehobothcc.com).

Other good choices in eastern Massachusetts include Easton Country Club in South Easton where green fees are a mere $36 (www.eastoncountryclub.com) and Red Tail Golf Club in Devens designed by Brian Silva which meanders through forests, brilliant in the fall with streams, ponds and plenty of wildlife all about.

In Bellingham, the New England Country Club is a pretty Hale Irwin track cut through trees affording plenty of fall color. (www.newenglandcountryclub.com). Other courses worth playing in Bellingham are Maplegate Country Club (www.maplegate.com) and Crystal Lake Golf Club on the Rhode Island border. (www.crystallakegolfclub.com)

In Uxbridge there is Blissful Meadows Golf Club (www.blissfulmeadows.com) and in Plainville, Wentworth Hills Golf Club.(www.wentworthhillsgolf.com).

West of Boston in central Massachusetts, one of the most complete golf resorts, The International, has two championship courses, The Pines and The Oaks along with the GolfRite Academy, a spa and luxurious Lodge where you sleep in pillow-top mattresses. Ask about fall packages which start at $165 for two. (www.theinternational.com). And also Far Corner Golf in west Boxford very scenic 27 holes awaits you. www.farcoprnergolf.com

And don’t forget the Berkshires in Western Massachusetts. This area is full of color, small inns, B&Bs and good golf. Shaker Farms in Westfield, Ma is a sure bet  www.shakerfarms.com

 

Grand Stands: Rhode Island

The elegant mansions and gardens of Newport and Aquidneck Island, Rhode Island, are a fitting reminder that golf courses like Newport National and Meadow Brook can also be grand, especially in the fall when the brilliant blue of sky and sea serves as a fitting backdrop for a kaleidoscope of colors.

As you play the Orchard Course at Newport National Golf Club, Middletown, an Arthur Hills masterpiece, you’ll catch magnificent views of The Sakonnet Passage, Atlantic Ocean and Narragansett Bay. With its feathery fescue, seaside bent grass and rolling fairways, it could remind you of an Irish links layout. (www.newportnational.com)

Two more winners are the popular Green Valley Country Club of Rhode Island overlooking St. Mary’s Reservoir in Portsmouth, home of the 2007 Rhode Island Open. (www.greenvalleyccofri.com) and Montaup Country Club, Portsmouth (www.montaupcc.com)

Beyond Newport, the stunning Meadow Brook Golf Club in Richmond designed by Roger Rulewich and Dave Fleury is a class act all the way. At 7,400 yards from the tips, it’s the longest  track in Rhode Island and characterized by deftly sculptured fairways, greens and bunkers, many elevations and the amazing tenth hole stretching 202 yards across water.  (www.meadowbrookgolfri.com)

For good value book a tee time at Exeter Country Club in Exeter (www.exetercc.com) and Triggs Memorial Golf Course in Providence. (www.triggs.us)

 

Mountain Highs

Snaking through the valleys that cut through the mountains and hills, narrow, tree-lined fairways, elevated tees,  steep climbs, uneven lies and blind holes are brought to their knees by the brilliance of the change of colors.   

 

Vermont

Stratton Mountain, a popular ski resort, welcomes golfers on its  three nine-hole courses:  Mountain, at 2,710 yards, the hardest and most dramatic; Forest the shortest; and Lake, the flattest and easiest. From the elevated 5th tee on Mountain, which overlooks most of the course, you’ve got trees on the left, a stream on the right. Camera time. (www.stratton.com)

In Manchester the historic Gleneagles Golf Course is within walking distance of The Equinox, an 18th century country house resort with a great spa. Originally designed by Walter Travis in 1926, the course was updated by Rees Jones in 1991. One of the most striking vistas is from the elevated 8th tee and the 13th green, the highest points on the course,  where you’re staring straight out at the white steeple of a village church rising above the brilliant fall blanket running up the mountains. (www.equinoxresort.com)

With climbs up to several hundred feet, when you play Killington Golf Course, you may well think you could use a sherpa. Arguably Vermont’s most in-your-face elevated rugged golf track, Killington, another Cornish design, is carved into tough rocky terrain with holes climbing and dropping over blind ridges. So dramatic are the elevations, you can be  pulling on your winter gloves on the 2nd tee while the foursome ahead of you putts out in short sleeve shirts 450 feet below. And wait until you see the killer views. (www.killingtongolf.com)

For  a change of pace climb aboard the Green Mountain Railroad’s vintage coaches running between Bellows Falls and White River Junction and let the conductor do the driving through the mountains.  (www.rails-vt.com)

 

New Hampshire

If you know what “On Golden Pond” is all about,  you know what Squam Lake in New Hampshire is all about. God’s country. Kayaking, canoeing, hiking, the plaintiff sound of loons. Peaceful, quiet with oranges and reds reflected in the spreading water.

Nearby Owl’s Nest Golf Club offers sweeping vistas of snow-capped mountains and dense stands of tall pines.  With plenty of bunkers, dog legs, wetlands, dramatic elevations and water hazards, to score well here, it’s all about strategic smart play. (www.owlsnestgolf.com)

Laconia Country Club is also a delight to play from the opening hole with its wide landing area to the hardest hole, #2, a par 5 challenging long hitters to cut corners and go for a birdie. With eight ponds, a handful of doglegs, and plenty of trees, club selection is critical. (www.laconiacountryclub.com)

The Manor on Golden Pond in Holderness rolls out stunning views of the lake and mountains where rooms feature wood burning fireplaces, canopy king beds, dining room, pub and private beach front with canoes and paddle boats. (www.manorongoldenpond.com) and for the Mount  Washington Valley go to www.mtwashingtonvalley.otg. for a full array of golf choices.

 

 

 

 

 

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1. Turn your golf hobby into a business
2. Best Of Fall Golf on Cape Cod
3. Massachusetts Golf News Fall 2009