Two of the world’s renowned golf course architects are preparing to work in New England for the first time in nearly two decades.
Escalante Golf announced it has selected Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw to redesign the Pines Course at The International, a 36-hole private facility in Bolton, Massachusetts. Scheduled to begin after the 2022 season, the project will become Coore & Crenshaw’s first New England effort since completing Old Sandwich Golf Club in 2004.
Coore & Crenshaw are being given the flexibility to use landforms as they deem fit on a course originally designed by Geoffrey Cornish and local golf legend Francis Ouimet in the 1950s and modified by Robert Trent Jones Sr. in the 1970s. Coore walked the Pines Course multiple times per the request of the previous owners 2½ years ago and left Massachusetts enthralled by the landforms, vegetation and favorable soil conditions.
“The more I walked the holes in their existing form, the more I just felt with sentimentality and respect for Mr. Cornish and Mr. Jones that this is a landform if the holes were re-routed, there could be a really interesting golf course here,” Coore said on a Zoom call with golf writers and industry media.
Crenshaw possesses less familiarity with The International, although he’s a huge name in Boston-area golf circles for leading the United States to a memorable rally during the 1999 Ryder Cup at The Country Club in Brookline. Crenshaw cited his first visit to The Country Club as a teenager in the late 1960s as sparking a zest for golf history and architecture.
“When Bill says we can make something interesting, I get pretty excited,” Crenshaw said. “We aim to build a traditional course, because so many New England courses are that. They reflect where the ground, vegetation and trees are. We’re starting with a clean slate and we’re very thankful we are going to be allowed to reconfigure and renumber the holes in directions that are going to be interesting.”
The Pines Course is perhaps best known its massive yardage, with the current layout extending to more than 8,300 yards from the back tees. Coore envisions the revamped course measuring less than 7,000 yards. “If the goal was to keep the Pines Course the longest course in America, then we have already failed spectacularly,” he said.
Texas-based Escalante Golf announced its purchase of The International out of bankruptcy last month. The company hired Tripp Davis earlier this month to renovate the Tom Fazio-designed Oaks Course. Davis’s work will be completed later this year, with the Oaks Course scheduled to reopen in 2021. The current version of the Pines Course will remain open through next golf season before work begins, according to Escalante Golf partner and vice president David Matheson.
Escalante Golf formed in 2018 and its portfolio includes 18 courses in 11 states. Landing Coore & Crenshaw, who are highly selective about the projects they pursue, represents a major triumph for a young company trying to generate buzz for the only 36-hole private club in the Boston market.
“We had been interested in working with them in the past, but the opportunity didn’t present itself until now,” Matheson said. “The stars all aligned and the timing worked out for what we wanted to accomplish. The history of what they have done up in that part of the country and Ben’s history at Brookline … it was just the perfect partnership between us and Coore & Crenshaw. Everything fell into place at the right time.”
Guy Cipriano is Golf Course Industry’s editor-in-chief.