Olde Salem Greens Golf Course

Favorite Hole

No. 4, par 5, 545 yards

“While aficionados of golf architecture love to drone on about the importance of strategic design, the original spirit of the game is for the player to surmount great natural obstacles.” -Tom Doak

This imperious par 5 is less about answering a risk-reward question than about doing battle with a burly stretch of terrain. First, your drive must find a plateau short of a big ledge. Your second shot, blind, needs to clear that ledge and hold a hog’s-back landing zone on the other side. If you execute those two shots well, you will be rewarded with a relatively simple approach into a large, angled green, elegantly fashioned into the base of a ridge. Make any small mistakes on the drive or second shot, and the land will quickly begin to work against you.

Some holes lodge in the memory not for the strategic complexity but rather for their creative use of an eventful piece of ground. The fourth at Olde Salem Greens is one of these.

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Overall Thoughts

In golf architecture writing, the word “bold” typically functions as a synonym for “obviously artificial.” It describes an architect’s tendency to manufacture features—bunkers, mounds, green contours—that stand out from their surroundings.

But there is another kind of boldness in golf course design: the willingness to route holes directly over severe natural landforms. The audacity not to circumvent troublesome slopes and undulations, but instead to tackle them head-on. This type of boldness in golf architecture usually requires, counterintuitively, restraint, or at least an acceptance of the natural lay of the land, whether by choice or in response to a limited budget.

It is in this sense that Wayne Stiles and John Van Kleek’s design at Olde Salem Greens is exceptionally bold.

Take the second hole, a 251-yard par 3 that plays over the brow of a hill before plunging to a green tucked into a dell. The shot is mostly blind; from the back tee, players can just make out the flag. A modern architect with access to a fleet of bulldozers might have lowered the top of the hill several feet to open up a sightline. A tentative architect might have avoided this portion of the property entirely, striking out for friendlier, if less compelling, terrain. But Stiles and Van Kleek saw an opportunity to create a unique and thrilling par 3, and I’m glad they went for it. Is the hole “fair”? Maybe not. But since a well-played ball will often ride the downslope onto the green, success is tantalizingly achievable. 

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Eight of the nine holes at Olde Salem Greens have distinctive, memorable personalities deriving from their relationships with the land. The lone exception is the straightforward third, which serves as a breather between the wild second and fourth.

Strategic design is a secondary consideration, but not wholly neglected. On the first and sixth holes, players who hug the well-protected crooks of the doglegs earn less obstructed views into the elevated saddles where the greens sit. On the delightful ninth hole, those who find a 20-yard-wide shelf on the right side of the fairway are rewarded with a simple wedge approach and an advantage over opponents whose tee shots have trickled down to the left.

Fifteen years ago, these options, as well as the general scale of the holes, might not have been visible. But thanks to the renovation work led by consulting architect Mark Mungeam and Superintendent Paul Lever since 2014, many of the details of Stiles and Van Kleek’s design at Olde Salem Greens have come into focus. First, Mungeam and Lever replaced and rerouted a number of problematic cart paths, removing visual distractions and allowing for agronomic refinements. They also removed between 400 and 500 trees, with similar benefits. Recently, they have shifted their attention to fairway and green expansions. This work has been transformative, recapturing both large landforms and subtle contours previously concealed by rough. 

A great deal remains to be done. Mungeam and Lever have begun to install new drainage in low-lying, flood-prone sections of the property—a long-term project that should eventually yield improvements in turf presentation. They would also like to renovate the course’s dilapidated bunkers, and perhaps restore a few that have disappeared over the years.

One particular desire of Mungeam’s is to bring back Stiles and Van Kleek’s original seventh hole, which played up onto a granite ledge left of the current fairway. The old green is still maintained as a practice area, but most of the former hole corridor is now covered in trees.

While the current seventh has an awkward charm and is by no means terrible, the 1933 version would be spectacular. It would also clear the way for the original, elevated eighth tee to be restored, transforming a fine uphill par 3 into a stellar ridge-to-ridge one.

Even at this midway point in its return to form, however, Olde Salem Greens is a must-play for appreciators of Golden Age golf architecture. I am amazed that it’s not better known.

1 Egg

(How we rate courses)

With its craggy, fascinating land and skillful Stiles-Van Kleek design, this course is knocking on the door of two-Egg status. After additional restoration and renovation work (specifically focusing on drainage, bunker reconstruction, design restoration, and further tree management), Olde Salem Greens may not only earn a second Egg but also join the likes of Whitinsville Golf Club and The Dunes Club as one of the best nine-hole courses in the country.

Course Tour

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