Lake Winnipesaukee Golf Club, New Hampshire
The extraordinary par four sixteenth at Lake Winnipesaukee Golf Club in New Durham, New Hampshire.
I’ve mentioned this at least once in this blog, but I firmly believe golf is the greatest game in the world. In no other sport do you have billions upon billions of possible outcomes every time you play, and the game can take you to extraordinary places you would never think you’d end up. Such is the case with New Hampshire, the thirty-first to be highlighted in this series. Following a few great book events in Maine—I touched on these in the Vermont post last month—I headed to Portsmouth, New Hampshire to stay the night. I eagerly anticipated the enviable tee time I had the next morning.
New Hampshire is probably known more for its scenery than anything else. I suppose that’s a great asset when it comes to attracting tourists around the country. You could also say the state is noteworthy for its classic motto “Live free or die”. The ninth admitted to the union, New Hampshire recently passed Maine as the most populous of the northernmost three in New England. More than 1.4 million residents reside in the state as of this year’s estimate. The Granite State is also home to a host of good golf courses and is deeper in quality than its westerly neighbor Vermont. The most sought after private club tee times can be found at Bald Peak Colony, Lake Winnipesaukee, Lake Sunapee, and Baker Hill. The state’s elite public tracks are usually listed online in some order of Mount Washington Resort, Hooper (one of the best nine holers in the country), Shattuck, and Owl’s Nest.
Lake Winnipesaukee Golf Club, which is actually several miles as the crow flies from its namesake body of water, was laid out in 2004 by Clive Clark. Clark was an English professional golfer who most notably finished third at the 1967 Open Championship and played for team Great Britain and Ireland in the 1973 Ryder Cup. As a course architect, his most celebrated layouts include Dumbarnie Links in Scotland’s Kingdom of Fife and Belgrade Lakes in Maine’s Kennebec Valley. Lake Winnipesaukee is currently ranked third in New Hampshire on Golf Digest and fourth on Top100GolfCourses.com and was named a top new golf course by GolfWeek twenty years ago. Anyway you look at it, LWCC belongs in the discussion of the greatest in the state.
The opening tee shot encapsulates the Lake Winnipesaukee experience, with its dramatic vista, abundance of trees, and significant elevation change. It’s a gentle opening to an otherwise tough golf course. The highest compliment I can give LWCC is that it reminded me a lot of the Quarry layout at Giant’s Ridge in Minnesota and the Canyon routing at Forest Highlands in Flagstaff, Arizona, two golf courses I think the world of. As far as I can remember, there wasn’t a single house situated along the golf course. It’s just you, the course, and some of the purest putting surfaces you’ll come across.
I embraced the challenge of Lake Winnipesaukee by playing off the back tees. The routing plays to nearly 6900 yards and features a par 37 front and par 35 back. I’m intrigued by the concept of a trio of par five scoring opportunities clustered on one side of the routing. However, at 558, 550, and 584 yards, you’ll need to play to the best of your ability to capitalize on the front nine. My favorite of the three aforementioned par fives was the 550-yard seventh, a beautiful slithering double dogleg that plays through a narrow corridor of pines off the tee and, eventually, leads to a green guarded by a penal pond and bunker. The fifth, the number one handicap hole, is also a standout on the front nine. It’s a 449-yard par four dogleg left with a daunting second shot that must carry over a large marsh hazard to get to the green. The best par three on the front nine is hole four, though precision is required off the tee to avoid six bunkers that probably, in total, double the square footage of the long, thin putting surface.
What’s more, the back nine is full of scenic golf holes. Number ten, situated right next to the clubhouse, has a spectacular view from the tee. The eleventh, with its tree skyline and wild, undulating green feels like a short par three you’d find in the northern region of my home state, Minnesota. The twelfth is a 470-yard monster that can crush you if you neglect to hit your tee ball or approach straight. Fifteen, reading 159 on the scorecard and playing shorter due to the downhill tee shot, is the most memorable of the par threes. The trees and bunkers create an amphitheater-like atmosphere, making it feel as though you’re striking the ball down into a gauntlet.
The sixteenth deserves a paragraph of its own. The 388-yard beaut has two rotating sets of tee boxes, the left being the more attractive spot to hit your first. The carry from the back tee is almost two hundred yards over a pond, and a canoe in the center of the water is supposed to be your aiming point. Tall conifers and a crab-shaped bunker protect Lake Winnipesaukee’s third to last hole. Let’s just say this is the greatest hole on the property, and not only because I had an eight foot putt for birdie. The scenery is, simply put, spectacular.
The overwhelming majority of Lake Winnipesaukee is solid, but I didn’t care especially for the eighth and eighteenth holes. The eighth is an uphill slog of 584 yards that is anything but interesting for the first four hundred or so. I hit an okay second shot and had to drive my cart up to see exactly where the heck to aim my third, then I lost a golf ball after I hit what I thought to be a perfect shot. As for the par four closer, it provides a great view of the lake but is a little lackluster following the other stellar holes of the routing.
I have to give a special shoutout to the tremendous folks at Lake Winnipesaukee—especially David, Kevin, Seth, Gerry, and Amy—who took great care of me during my visit. This is a welcoming, friendly golf club, and I sure was lucky to have the first tee time the morning I played. They deserve additional praise for recommending Morrissey’s, located in nearby Wolfeboro, for my post-round lunch.
I’m not quite sure why Lake Winnipesaukee manages to fly under the radar. The course is a tremendous trek in the woods. Without a doubt, it’s one of the best golf courses I’ve played this year and a must play if you’re in the area and receive the invitation.