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Wianno Club
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Photography by George Peet
Since the club has its own history book, written in 1995 by George Rowland, that’s a good place to start: "The Wianno Yacht Club was established in 1885 and held its first race in 1891 off the pier and clubhouse at the end of Wianno Avenue, now a town landing," he began. "In March of 1916, the board of governors decided that the club should expand and provide more activities for the membership, as well as a place for guests and relatives to stay, so they purchased the Cotocheset House. Their objective was to initiate plans for golf, tennis, croquet, dancing and other social activities.
"One hundred and eighty acres of land were purchased from the Osterville Land Co. and others. The name of the club was changed from the Wianno Yacht Club to the Wianno Club, and the title of Commodore to president."
Before farms became Farms, before windmills became controversial, before lots the size of putting greens became million-dollar properties, a club could simply decide to expand by picking up 180 acres of prime Cape Cod real estate, and then it could shop around for a world-renowned architect to help out with construction. Considered in that vein, thank goodness there was a golf boom on, or who knows what might now cover these beach-hugging fairways.
"One Leonard Biles, a landscaper but not a golf architect, was hired to design and build a nine-hole course on the land occupied by the present holes 13-18, with the 1st hole where the 16th tee is now."
This makes sense once you have played the course. The 16th just smacks of an old starting hole. From the narrow teeing area, it funnels out to a fairway wide enough to hit a drive without too much worry, trees right and left but nothing scary. It’s the second shot that causes a little more concern. At 402 yards from the tips, let’s say your drive rolled 240, leaving 160 or so to go.
From that point, all you can see is the top of the flagstick, a double-height flagstick at that, as the fairway slopes up and then drops way down into a bowl-shaped green. You can see from the scorecard that the green is 27 yards from front to back, more or less round and with a big front section. You might also factor in the color of the flag. What you can’t know is what sort of roll you had, so the walk over the hill is infused with a sense of anticipation or, in the event that you struck it well for the first time all day, a sense of exhilaration. Just don’t three-putt, or the mood passes all too quickly.
When the club expanded, the old No. 1 hole became No. 16 in the shuffle. "Where the present 2nd and 8th holes are the West Bay Inn had a few holes that also were purchased." Those two holes are side-by-side, open like links, and at 452 and 544 yards it is easy to see how they could have fit more than two holes in there 80 years ago. "Some time in the period 1919-1920, Donald Ross was hired to redesign the original nine plus design a new nine. This information came from the Donald Ross Society."
The club began to focus more on golf and less on the other recreational pursuits. "In 1919 the board looked into stocking both ponds, but no action was taken," Rowland wrote. One of those ponds stretches between the tee and green at the par-3 No. 9, and the other hugs the right side of No. 18, making hazards of them both if you are sloppy.
The 12 new holes would land between the original six and the water’s edge, visible from the turn at Nos. 4-5-6. If you have ever been to Oyster Harbors, that’s Wianno over your right shoulder as you cross the drawbridge. If you have ever been to the Crosby Boatyard, that’s Wianno 20 skips of a stone to the other side of North Bay.
Had Robert Trent Jones had his way, the 4th green right next to the beach there would be an island today, a la No. 17 at TPC Sawgrass. During a visit with his friend and Wianno member Larry Davis in 1966, Jones was asked to look over the course and make some suggestions, according to Rowland’s book. "Some of these ideas were good, though highly impractical and expensive, so the ideas were dropped."
Since the 4th green was naturally flooded by saltwater on a regular basis and had to be rinsed off and limed every time it happened, the membership could see no earthly reason to introduce more water to the setting.
In any case, the course is classic Ross -- on the short side, with smallish greens and loads of character, plus plenty of challenges and pleasing vistas. The membership not only knew the right designers to call on, they also did some fine work themselves, especially in rebuilding the 17th and 18th greens, two of the better putting surfaces on Cape Cod.
It may seem arcane now, but golf archeologists will want to know that it was member Ed Crossett who rebuilt the No. 17 green in the late 1920’s, and it was his wife Carolyn who rebuilt the 18th in 1937. Seventeen is especially creative. It’s not only the biggest green on the course, its shape, tiers and contours combine to make it the most interesting. It’s a short par-4 at 309 yards, so the approach can be rolled, pitched, lobbed or bumped …so long as it ends up close. Otherwise there will be lots of required reading.
No. 18 is fairly plain to the eye, but as a finishing hole it’s perfect: it has a back-to-front tilt, but it’s fairly flat all around, so the
player who keeps the ball below the hole is rewarded, but shouldn’t celebrate, because anything close is makeable. From above the hole, one should be prepared either to one-putt or three-putt, because not too many players will be able to cozy one tight unless it’s snowing.
Even if you didn’t know it beforehand, you could probably tell once you started playing that Wianno is the result of more than one plan. It may not be fair to the landscaper Biles, but his original six holes, now Nos. 13-18, are a mere functional loop when compared to the meandering, scenic, up and down, roiling good time to be had on 1-12.
No.’s 1 and 2 are quintessential links - straight, treeless, undulating, pocked by holes, dotted by mounds, framed by grabby rough and finished off with little greens that are accessible through the front door but not so welcoming to strangers. The 1st measures 304 and the 2nd 452, but both are 4-pars.
That additional 148 yards makes you wonder what No. 3 is going to be like, but fortunately it’s a par-3 and, at 150 yards from an elevated tee, a reachable 3 at that. Feeling small from the hole before, I took too much club and hit it long, under the split rail fence between the club and the ‘hood, but then I chipped back on and sunk a long putt as if I knew what I was doing.
Wianno’s full reality begins to unfold as you walk down the fairway at No. 4. This is a short but deceptively difficult 465-yard par-5 that slopes up and then bends down to the right around a corner bunker before ending up at the water’s edge. Bobbing day sailors with their riggings clanging against their hollow metal masts proved all very distracting, which may be why I lost both my drive and my approach to the right, ending up in some reeds that made me think of poisonous darts, and a bogey 6 it was.
Whatever onshore wind may be holding up shots on No. 4 will reward them on the next two holes. The 200-yard par-3 No. 5 is easy until you get to the slippery slope of a green, and No. 6, the 380-yard par-4 that takes you back toward the golf house. Here again there is that feeling of links, of Donald Ross circa 1920, with rolling, open fairways and bunkers in all the right spots. (In fact three of the holes on this course have six bunkers apiece, No.’s 10, 11 and 13, with pars of 4-3-4.) Between the bunkering and the way the holes flow with the slope of the land, Wianno can be reminiscent of Oyster Harbors and Bass River, two other Cape courses by Ross.
But of all the memorable features of Wianno, of all the nooks, crannies and curves, of all the holes that seem simple on the scorecard but are not in person, No. 7 is the one. Having been lulled to relaxation by the openness and width and subtlety of No.’s 1-6, No. 7 is a slap upside the head. You should probably hit the drive with an iron, because you want to keep it on the fairway, not into the woods left, and definitely not into the swamp right. Believe me, even Tarzan wouldn’t have gone looking in there.
The next shot is dead left and straight up a hill that should come with a St. Bernard and an emergency flagon. You’ll want to avoid hitting from this hill, but rather over it and onto the accommodating green, and then quick scoot over to No. 8 before your ball rolls back down.
No. 8 takes you 544 yards back and then, for the final 160, all you have to do is knock it from the 9th tee to the huge green on the other side of a pond. But don’t think about that pond - think instead about where you want your ball to land in relation to the flag, right? What a game. Here’s a glorified puddle that, with decent contact, I could carry using any club in my bag, and what do I do? You know what I did. But at least I didn’t throw anything or curse out loud. The place is way too nice for that kind of behavior. And I very much appreciated Wianno’s hospitality to us.
No. 10 is a long, national nightmare for short hitters, with water right, woods left, and a bunch of fairway slopes that only seem to go uphill. If you took a break at the turn, this hole will undo any sense of inner calm you may have acquired. The card indicates that this par-4 is 431 yards long, but it’s more like 510 if you play it side to side.
An anecdote about No. 10: "Aside from our holes-in-one, we had some exceptional shots," Rowland wrote in his book. "One I recall from the 10th tee by a right handed golfer was a well-heeled shot between his legs, across the terrace into the lunch room of the old clubhouse, then striking the bar, out the door again, across the terrace and onto the tee again – playing two." My drive should have been so entertaining.
Although No. 11 is a spiffy little 3-par at 118, it is not to be taken lightly or you might just end up off the green in some rough stuff that’s a lot harder to hit from than the tee box. No. 12 is a short par-5 at 458, but it’s no picnic if you don’t get your drive out there in the fairway nice and straight. Otherwise, you are stuck on a hill with no green in sight, and the other guys are probably walking ahead and making you feel childish. Once you catch up, though, you’ll want to avoid the bunkers on both front sides of the green, especially if the flag is up front; better to pitch back to the hole than to try and keep it close from these two traps.
After that it’s across the street to a slight dogleg right, 291-yard 4-par with trouble right and left and nothing but rewards up the middle. Take advantage. This begins the 13-18 loop, with a 3-par at No. 14, the 405-yard par-4 at No. 15, and then over to the old starting hole at No. 16.
From start to finish it’s a pleasure to be at Wianno, beginning with the caddie who appears out of nowhere and marries your bag to a cart. If you’re from a magazine, then the club pro, Bill Tramontozzi, who is 48 and in his 10th year at Wianno (prior at Kapalua), might be kind enough to conduct a tour of the golf house, a simple building wrapped in shingles and wedged between the driving range and the teeing areas for No. 1 and No. 10.
A graduate of Bentley College, Tramontozzi is a soft-spoken man who places at the top of his resume his 1983 Coach of the Year honors with the national champions from Palm Beach Junior College.
Tramontozzi will point out the plaques and papers that memorialize Rusty Gunnarson’s competitive course record of 65; Ted Turner’s anytime course record of 64 (he was the Wianno pro for 25 years); Mrs. Henry B. Jackson’s lady members record of 72 in 1956; and the board that lists the Victor F. Adams award winners for players who scored better than their age - Larry Kirk, Bill Gurney and John Landen. There are also reminders that Wianno was on the ground floor of the Indian Summer Tournaments (now the Cape Cod Classic) and the Women’s Cape Cod League (which ended during gas rationing).
The superintendent at Wianno is Mark Williams, and he is credited with having brought the course into the modern age of agronomy. Since his arrival in 1994, the membership has been singing the course’s praises more than they ever had in the previous 75 years, according to Rowland. Williams also worked to have Wianno designated as an Audubon Society Cooperative course. He sprinkled it with houses for bluebirds, and he groomed it to a tip-top shape that doesn’t smother the aura of this old course.
After the golf house, it’s on to the 1st tee, where you are greeted by a gentleman who does not seem at all harried like most starters. He will inquire if you have played the course previously because, if you haven’t, you should know about the streets you have to cross between holes - roads that were built for horses and buggies not their Volvo versus your E-Z-Go.
The golf house is one of three club buildings on the property, the other two being comfort stations. Although it could easily be mistaken for the clubhouse, the golf house is just that - a place for golfers to change shoes and add up scores. The actual clubhouse is located a mile away on the other side of this rolling isthmus and could be mistaken for a governor’s mansion.
That’s the part of Wianno where members take their meals, or where their guests might stay if they are in town for a weekend wedding, say. Over there on the Sound side, you can see windsurfers and boats under sail and waves with whitecaps washing against the seawall. You can also practice your putting on an 18-hole green in the midst of a cottage colony across the street from the clubhouse. Or you can do nothing but take it all in, grateful in the knowledge that you are simply there…
Of the 243 golf courses that opened in 2001, only 15 were municipally owned, according to a recent study that suggested the nation’s municipal course construction boom is over.
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