Bald Peak Colony Club

Bald Peak was the project of Thomas Gustav Plant (1859-1941), a French-Canadian, self-made industrialist who had built his country estate, Lucknow, now known as Castle in the Clouds, high on the Ossipee Mountains above Lake Winnipesaukee. He developed the club on the lower reaches of that estate. The club's own history says Plant planned the golf course, clubhouse, boathouse and guest cottages, and that the Bald Peak Country Club was incorporated in 1920; a 2011 Moultonborough Heritage Commission talk dated the development to 1919-1920. Plant's club engaged Donald Ross to build the course, which officially opened on August 1, 1921.

Jay Flemma's 2021 account of the course's restoration adds the working detail. Ross and Plant were friends who knew each other from Mid Pines in North Carolina, where Plant was a member, and Ross was working on Mid Pines and on Teugega in Rome, New York, which also opened in 1921. Flemma concludes from the routing and the historical record that Ross was the primary architect and spent significant time on the build, while allowing that Plant or his construction team may have offered suggestions and that playing corridors routed by a George Merritt may have predated Ross. No source found records a Ross return after the opening. The next architects the sources name at Bald Peak are Ron Forse and Jim Nagle of Forse Design, whose master-plan work was under way by the mid-2000s.

Holes to Know

From the 5 tees the course is 6,515 yards and par 36 on each nine, 3,261 yards out and 3,254 in. There are five par 3s (the 5th, 8th, 12th, 15th and 17th), eight par 4s and five par 5s (the 2nd, 9th, 14th, 16th and 18th). Three par 4s run past 400 yards: the 4th, the 7th (stroke index 1) and the 10th (stroke index 2), the longest at 433. From the 14th the card alternates par 5 and par 3 to the clubhouse. The routing comes back past the clubhouse at the 9th, 11th and 15th, so shorter loops are possible.

The 298-yard 1st from the 5 tees, stroke index 15, is the shortest par 4. It starts beside the clubhouse and crosses a road about 40 yards out. A long rough-covered mound angles across the right half of the fairway from about 210 to 230 yards, and the fairway carries on past its left end to the green. Flemma describes it as a berm the tee shot is tempted to carry toward a tongue of fairway or the green itself. The green is narrow, about 38 yards deep and 20 wide, with a long thin bunker along each side.

The 147-yard 5th from the 5 tees, stroke index 17, is the hole Top100GolfCourses names "Punch Bowl", dropping toward the lake to a two-tiered green. Today the round green, about 25 yards across, has two bunkers short of it, one front-left and one front-right, with a cart path down the right.

The 138-yard 12th from the 5 tees, stroke index 18, is the shortest hole and the one known as "Battleship". It has no sand. The green, about 27 yards deep and 17 wide and narrowest at the front, sits on a raised pad ringed by banks of rough, and grassed ridges cross the ground 25 to 40 yards short of it. Top100 describes the green as tilting from back to front and falling away steeply in every direction; Flemma calls it a volcano-style hole whose green rises to a pinnacle.

The 192-yard 17th from the 5 tees, stroke index 6, is the last of the five par 3s. A strip of fairway runs up to the front of a round green about 27 yards across, with a single bunker short and left of it. Flemma singles out the green's tiers, with one shelf a full five feet above the others.

The 573-yard 18th from the 5 tees is the longest hole and the third par 5 of the closing five. A road runs the length of the right side beyond the trees and houses line the left. Rough-covered mounds sit along the right edge of the fairway from about 290 to 100 yards short of the green, with a few more on the left. A bunker on the left lies about 120 yards short of the green and another on the right about 55 short, and three more sit at the green's back left, back and right.

Ross's Design Here

The hazards here are mostly grass. Jim Nagle of Forse Design, describing the 2005-06 bunker work, said "there were only 19 original bunkers of Ross's, but well over 60 mounds and berms. Those were the main hazards." Top100 counts twenty sand bunkers for the eighteen holes, and our mapping finds about the same. The two hardest holes on the card, the 7th and the 10th, have no sand at all; the 10th has rough-covered mounds down its left side instead. Flemma traces the mound theme from the diagonal berm on the 1st through mounds that blend into the 2nd green and flank the fairways of the 3rd and 16th.

The par 3s carry most of the green contour the sources describe: the two-tiered 5th, the 12th's raised green, a false side at the 15th, which Flemma also notes is guarded by a lone tree, and the tiered 17th. Brad Becken, president of the Donald Ross Society, told Flemma that the 12th belongs to a family of Ross par 3s that includes the 3rd at Wannamoisett and the 2nd at Irondequoit.

The card itself is the other distinctive feature. Ron Forse told Flemma that the five par 3s and five par 5s, and the 5-3-5-3-5 finish, which "may be unique in American golf", show that Ross let the land dictate the routing across a hillside with a lot of elevation change.

Historical Significance

The course's debut came with an international exhibition in August 1922: Francis Ouimet and Jesse Guilford against the British professionals J. H. Taylor and Sandy Herd, over 36 holes. The club's account says the morning round finished all square and Ouimet and Guilford won the afternoon 3 and 1, and that Herd later told a member it was the most beautiful course he played in America.

On December 8, 2023 the property was listed on the National Register of Historic Places as a distinct example of a rural country club established in the 1920s, with 93 contributing buildings, sites and structures. The state's announcement called it one of the most intact historic golf clubs in New Hampshire and the only one on a lake or with historic residences.

GOLF ranked Bald Peak first in New Hampshire in both its 2022-23 and 2024-25 state lists. New Hampshire Golf had scheduled its 2026 Robert H. Elliott Mid-Amateur Championship at the club; in 2025 it moved the event to October 4-6, 2028 because of the clubhouse rebuild.

Changes Since Ross

Forse Design's work came in two stages. Under a master plan, Forse and Nagle redid all the bunkers in 2005-06. A Golf Club Atlas discussion in 2011 also noted green expansions, tree removal in places and several large mounds added by then. A further restoration and renovation was complete by the 2021 centennial. Nagle described its scope to Flemma: bunkers added on the 3rd fairway and five on the 18th, wider fairways, nearly every green expanded to the full size of its pad, internal contour added on two or three greens, and several shorter sets of tees, some set in the fairway itself. The 18th's sand therefore dates largely from that work rather than from Ross.

The routing has not been reworked; the state's announcement treats the club as one of the most intact of its period in New Hampshire, and Top100 describes the course as basically unaltered from its original layout. Separately, members approved a complete rebuild of the clubhouse in 2025, a project of roughly $30 million that was due to begin in October 2026.

Uncertainties

• Design credit: Top100 notes that at least one commentator has listed George Meredith, of Ross's Pinehurst staff, and Thomas Plant as co-designers, and Flemma mentions a George Merritt whose corridors may have predated Ross. The club, the state and Flemma all treat Ross as the architect; this listing does too.

• Development dates: the club gives 1920 for incorporation, while the Moultonborough Heritage Commission dates Plant's development to 1919-1920. The listing keeps 1921, the opening, as the design year.

Sources & Notes

1. Bald Peak Colony Club, About Us and History, https://www.baldpeak.org/about-us (incorporation 1920, Plant's planning, 1,000 acres, membership).

2. Bald Peak Colony Club, Golf, https://www.baldpeak.org/golf (6,515 yards; August 1922 exhibition and result; Herd's remark).

3. Bald Peak Colony Club, Racquets, https://www.baldpeak.org/racquets (tennis, pickleball, paddle).

4. Laconia Daily Sun staff report via Concord Monitor, "Bald Peak Colony Club latest NH listing to National Register of Historic Places", January 3, 2024, https://www.concordmonitor.com/?p=118 (opening August 1, 1921; Plant and Lucknow; most intact; 93 contributing resources).

5. Wikipedia, National Register of Historic Places listings in Carroll County, New Hampshire, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Register_of_Historic_Places_listings_in_Carroll_County,_New_Hampshire (listing date December 8, 2023, #100009636).

6. Moultonborough Heritage Commission, Community Landmarks talk notice (Cristina Ashjian), 2011, https://www.moultonboroughnh.gov/DocumentCenter/View/1571/Community-Landmarks-Bald-Peak-Clubpdf (development 1919-1920).

7. Jay Flemma, "Forse Design restores Donald Ross at New Hampshire's Bald Peak Colony Club", The Golf News Net, August 24, 2021, https://thegolfnewsnet.com/jayflemma/2021/08/24/forse-design-restores-donald-ross-at-new-hampshires-bald-peak-colony-club-131565/ (Ross and Plant; Merritt; Nagle and Forse quotes; restoration scope; hole features).

8. Top100GolfCourses, Bald Peak Colony Club, https://www.top100golfcourses.com/golf-course/bald-peak-colony (Ross engaged; Meredith/Plant attribution; twenty bunkers; 5th and 12th; basically unaltered).

9. GOLF, "Best golf courses in New Hampshire for 2024-25", https://golf.com/travel/best-golf-courses-new-hampshire-2024-25/ and "5 best golf courses in New Hampshire (2022/2023)", https://golf.com/travel/best-golf-courses-new-hampshire-2022-2023/ (No. 1 in both).

10. New Hampshire Golf, "New Hampshire Golf & Bald Peak Colony Club Announce Schedule Change", 2025, https://www.nhgolf.com/new-hampshire-golf-bald-peak-colony-club-announce-schedule-change/ (clubhouse vote; Mid-Amateur moved to 2028).

11. Club + Resort Chef, "Mark Brown On Bald Peak's Clubwide Renovation", July 15, 2026, https://clubandresortchef.com/mark-brown-on-bald-peaks-clubwide-renovation/ (about $30 million, start October 2026, 2028 opening).

12. GolfPass, Bald Peak Colony Club, https://www.golfpass.com/travel-advisor/courses/9046-bald-peak-colony-club (bentgrass, driving range).

13. Golf Club Atlas discussion group, "Bald Peak Colony", July 2011, https://www.golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php/topic,48953.0.html (Forse work: green expansion, mounds, tree removal).

14. Greens Visited scorecard and course-tour aerials (USGS NH 2021/2022 orthophotos via NH GRANIT) for yardages, stroke indexes and what is on the ground today.