Brae Burn Country Club

Brae Burn Golf Club was established on May 29, 1897 in West Newton, and its first nine-hole course was in play from 1897 to 1902. LINKS Magazine traces the ground to a six-hole layout by brothers Henry and Frank Day on family land; Mass Golf's 2021 club history, drawing on club historian Kevin Mendik, credits the original holes to George H. Phelps. The club dates its first 18-hole course from 1902, and members voted in December 1903 to complete the extension to 18 holes. In March 1904 the club became Brae Burn Country Club.

Donald Ross's link to the club began with his brother. Mass Golf records that after Donald arrived in Boston in April 1899 as professional at Oakley Country Club, he recruited Alex Ross as Brae Burn's first professional, a post Alex held from 1902 to 1914; he won the 1907 U.S. Open while there. In 1912 Donald Ross redesigned the first 18-hole course, and the club used that second 18-hole layout until 1928. According to the club historian, Ross laid out new holes on newly acquired land, the stretch from the 2nd to the 6th, and kept several holes of the original nine. The club holds no Ross drawings, but in March 1915 Wayne Stiles, an early member who had just opened a landscape practice in Boston, drew a topographical plan of the course as it then stood.

The course kept changing between Ross's visits. Boston Globe reports summarised on Wikipedia record improvements to nine holes in 1924 and, in 1925, fourteen new fairway bunkers on the 14th and its fairway narrowed by 20 yards. After the USGA awarded Brae Burn the 1928 U.S. Amateur, Ross returned and made a number of changes to his 1912 course. LINKS Magazine credits him with a new back tee on the 18th, later called the Jones Tee. The Pittsburgh Press reported that Ross had tightened up the course, and a Springfield Republican writer thought few would recognise it from 1919. No later Ross visit is recorded.

Holes to Know

From the Gold tees (6,801 yards) the course is par 35-37, 3,219 yards out and 3,582 in, with four par 3s (the 6th, 8th, 12th and 17th), ten par 4s and four par 5s (the 5th, 10th, 13th and 14th). The 13th and 14th are back-to-back par 5s.

The 225-yard 8th from the Gold tees, stroke index 15, was the 3rd hole of the original nine. It crosses a valley, with a footbridge down the left and a creek about 125 yards out, to an oval green just past the crest with two bunkers on its left. In the 1919 U.S. Open, Willie Chisholm made 18 here after his drive came to rest against a rock in the valley.

The 466-yard 11th from the Gold tees, stroke index 4, is the longest par 4 on the card. Houses line its left side, the side the club marks out of bounds, and the hole bends gently right. Three bunkers guard the right of the green, which at about 38 yards deep is the largest on the course. Geoffrey Cornish rebuilt it in the 1960s.

The 555-yard 14th from the Gold tees, stroke index 2, follows the par-5 13th. A ditch crosses it about 125 yards out, it turns right about 270 yards out, and bunkers line both sides from about 320 to 455 yards before more cluster at the green, mostly on the right.

The 255-yard 17th from the Gold tees, stroke index 16, is the longest par 3. Its green is about 31 yards deep and 16 wide, ringed by five bunkers and, by the club's notes, divided by a trench.

The 440-yard 18th from the Gold tees, stroke index 10, plays from Ross's Jones Tee through a tree-lined chute, over a brook about 235 yards short of the green, to a broad green below the clubhouse.

Ross's Design Here

Bradley Klein calls Brae Burn "one of Donald Ross's more ingenious routings," one that "makes ideal use of a complicated parcel." He describes an eight-hole stretch from the 2nd tee "across classically rocky New England terrain with a lot of side slope" and a back nine on "gentler terrain, with intense mounding." The holes Ross added on new land, the 2nd to the 6th, open that rocky stretch.

The routing is a mix of Ross's holes and older ground. The club historian identifies today's 1st and 18th as the original 9th and 1st holes, both reversed, and the 7th, 8th, 9th and 10th as the original 2nd to 5th, ground in play since 1897.

The club's own hole notes describe greens that do much of the work: a two-tiered, elevated green ringed by bunkers at the 2nd, a heavily mounded green at the 3rd, mounds and valleys at the short 6th, a two-tiered green at the 10th, and at the 12th an elevated green that slopes from back to front with a valley through the middle and deep, white-faced bunkers. Billy Casper named the 12th his favourite hole on the course. Reporting on the 1928 course, The Evening Star's Walter R. McCallum wrote of "tricky second shots" and "deceptively placed water ditches"; today ditches cross the 14th and a brook crosses the 18th.

Historical Significance

Brae Burn has hosted eight USGA championships. Harriot Curtis won the 1906 U.S. Women's Amateur there. In 1914, two years after the first Ross redesign, Francis Ouimet won the Massachusetts Amateur. The 1917 U.S. Open, postponed by the war to June 1919, ended with Walter Hagen and Mike Brady tied at 301; Hagen won the playoff 77 to 78 after a ruling gave him a drop from mud at the 17th.

At the 1928 U.S. Amateur, played on Ross's revised course, Bobby Jones was taken to an extra hole in the second round by Ray Gorton, a Brae Burn member and seven-time club champion; Walter Hagen called the back nine and extra hole "the greatest 10 holes of match play golf I have ever seen." Jones went on to beat Phillip Perkins 10 and 9 in the final for the fourth of his five Amateur titles.

The club later hosted the Curtis Cup in 1958, which ended in a tie, and in 1970, and further U.S. Women's Amateurs won by Beth Daniel in 1975 and by Silvia Cavalleri in 1997, the club's centennial. The 2024 U.S. Women's Mid-Amateur returned the USGA after 27 years, and the 2028 U.S. Women's Amateur falls on the centenary of Jones's win. Brae Burn has hosted the Massachusetts Amateur 11 times, from 1906 to 2021, and the Massachusetts Women's Amateur 15 times, more than any other club. Member Edward Stimpson Jr. invented the Stimpmeter in 1936, and it is on display in the club's lobby.

Changes Since Ross

The routing has stayed close to the 1928 course. The Boston Globe noted in 1978 that the length of each hole had been unchanged for more than half a century, and Mass Golf says only a few alterations to tees and greens have been made since.

Mass Golf's 2021 championship fact sheet lists the later work. In the 1960s Geoffrey Cornish was called in over drainage problems near the 11th and 12th; Mass Golf's club history adds that the 11th green had been a punchbowl, and Cornish brought fill over from the 12th, built a new green on top of the old one and raised its surroundings. In 1985 Brian Silva restored greens and bunkers and modified others. The fact sheet also records restoration and enhancement work by Gil Hanse in recent years and a master plan by Ron Forse, without dates or scope. The second course, opened in 1922 on land from founding member Henry B. Day, was upgraded and renamed the Highland Course in 1994.

Uncertainties

• Who laid out the first holes: LINKS credits Henry and Frank Day, Mass Golf's club history credits George H. Phelps, and a 2010 Golf Club Atlas thread raised Alex Findlay without evidence. The architect field credits neither.

• When the first 18 holes opened: the club dates them from 1902, while Mass Golf and Wikipedia report the December 1903 vote to extend to 18.

• The scope of Ross's 1928 work: sources agree on the Jones Tee and a tightened course but do not list hole-by-hole changes.

• The 1928 final margin: LINKS gives 10 and 8; Wikipedia's account of the championship gives 10 and 9, which this listing follows.

Sources & Notes

1. Brae Burn Country Club, "Our History," https://www.braeburngolf.com/our-history (founding, name change, 1902-12 and 1912-28 courses, Ross 1912 and 1928, Alex Ross, championships, Stimpmeter).

2. Brae Burn Country Club, "The Donald Ross Design," https://www.braeburngolf.com/the-donald-ross-design (Ross 1912 and 1928).

3. Brae Burn Country Club, "Course Tour," https://www.braeburngolf.com/course-tour (hole notes: greens at 2, 3, 6, 10, 12, 17; Casper on the 12th; 1919 score of 18 on the 8th; out of bounds; Highland Course card).

4. Brae Burn Country Club, "Club Amenities," "Guest Information," "A Legacy of Champions" and "USGA Women's Championships," https://www.braeburngolf.com/club-amenities, https://www.braeburngolf.com/guest-information, https://www.braeburngolf.com/a-legacy-of-champions, https://www.braeburngolf.com/usga-events (facilities, guest policy, eight USGA championships, 15 Mass Women's Amateurs, 2028 dates).

5. Mass Golf, "10 Things To Know About Historic Brae Burn Country Club," July 13, 2021, https://www.massgolf.org/news/21-braeburn-history/ (club historian Kevin Mendik: Phelps, Alex Ross 1902-14, Ross holes 2-6, original holes, Stiles 1915 plan, Chisholm's 18, Cornish at the 11th, the Toboggan, Highland Course).

6. Mass Golf, "113th Massachusetts Amateur Championship Fact Sheet," July 2021, https://massgolf.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/113th-Massachusetts-Amateur-Championship.pdf (hole yardages, Cornish, Silva 1985, Hanse, Forse; Mass championships at Brae Burn).

7. LINKS Magazine, "Classic Course: Brae Burn Country Club," https://www.linksmagazine.com/classic-course-brae-burn-country-club/ (Day brothers, 1912 redesign, Jones Tee, Bradley Klein quotations).

8. Wikipedia, "Brae Burn Country Club," https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brae_Burn_Country_Club (citing Boston Globe reports of 1903, 1924, 1925 and 1978).

9. Wikipedia, "1919 U.S. Open (golf)," https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1919_U.S._Open_(golf) (Hagen and Brady, playoff, 17th and 18th).

10. Wikipedia, "1928 U.S. Amateur," https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1928_U.S._Amateur (press on Ross's 1928 changes, Gorton match, final).

11. AmateurGolf.com, "Boston's Brae Burn awarded two USGA Women's Championships," August 2022, https://www.amateurgolf.com/golf-tournament-news/29080/Boston-s-Brae-Burn-awarded-two-USGA-Women-s-Championships (2024 and 2028 awards, 1928 centenary).

12. Mass Golf, "Brae Burn CC Tabbed To Host Two Women's National Championships," August 2022, https://massgolf.org/?p=15954 (2024 and 2028 dates, state championship counts).

13. Top100GolfCourses, "Brae Burn," https://www.top100golfcourses.com/golf-course/brae-burn (course largely as played in 1928).

14. Golf Club Atlas, "Alex Findlay and Brae Burn Country Club," 2010, https://www.golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php/topic,46148.0.html (Findlay question; 1947 and 1997 club histories).

15. Greens Visited course data: scorecard (Gold tees) and MassGIS spring 2025 aerials with mapped hole geometry.