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Donald Ross design at Vesper Country Club undergoes major bunker refurb
Ross won the first Massachusetts Open at Vesper in 1905, for which he was awarded an engraved pocket watch. Ross or his brother Alex won the Massachusetts Open every year from 1905-1912.
Course architect Jim Nagle was first connected with Vesper in 2002-3, when he and Ron Forse drew up a masterplan for the course and piloted their plan by rebuilding the bunkers on the first hole. But the club, which celebrated its 150th anniversary in 2025, decided to go down another route and hired another architectural firm which rebuilt the greens to USGA standards and reconstructed all the bunkers with steep grass faces. But after a short time, these bunker faces began to deteriorate as they were not able to hold either water or fertiliser.
“Around the time of Covid, the club called me and asked Ron and I to come back in and develop a new plan,” says Jim Nagle. “I was the project lead, and when I formed my own practice the club chose to work with NDW.”
Touring the course with club leaders, Nagle asked them if there were any bunkers on the course that they thought should be a template for the work. “They immediately pointed to the ones on the first hole that Ron and I had rebuilt years before,” he says. “We’ve used a number of different Ross projects as inspiration; the sand lines are more irregular and there is more flashing of sand on the faces. Some of the bunkers are very deep to fit in with the nature of the site, which is wonderfully sculpted – very flat in some places and violently undulating in others. The flashing of the sand is about maintenance. We have laid back some of the faces, and we are lining the bunkers with Better Billy Bunker, so we have greater facility to flash the sand without washouts.”
Local firm MAS Golf is handling the build. “The heavy lifting is done, but we have to drain and line the bunkers and sod the edges,” says Jim. “We’ve also moved a few fairways to add strategy to the holes and added some mounds to challenge longer hitters. Previously there were a number of opportunities for them to hit a drive outside the hole corridor and have an easier shot into the green. I used mounds rather than bunkers generally because they are in areas that are blind off the tees, and golfers tolerate mounds where they wouldn’t bunkers. I don’t think mounding is used enough, in all honesty. Ross often used them, and we feel they’re very appropriate in this case.”
