GolfNewsRI

The revamped  Pines Course at The International in Bolton is set to open for limited member play this fall. 

After previously being “America’s Longest Golf Course,” the Pines has been reimagined by Bill Moore and Ben Crenshaw as a place that can be enjoyed by all levels of players. 

“Bill, Ben, shapers Ryan Farrow and Zach Varty, and the rest of the Coore & Crenshaw team have worked their magic, taking an exceptional site and crafting what we strongly believe will be considered one of the country’s best new golf courses,” said Paul Celano, Director of Golf at The International. 

Celano adds, “Their deep admiration for courses built during the early 20th century, the so-called ‘Golden Age of Architecture,’ is an ideal match for our vision of a golf-first experience at The International that preserves and honors the club’s 120-year history,” 

The Pines is only the second course Coore & Crenshaw have designed and built in New England; the first is the highly acclaimed Old Sandwich Golf Club in Plymouth, Massachusetts, which opened in 2005.

About The Pines 

The Pines was originally designed by Geoffrey Cornish with help from legendary amateur golf champion Francis Ouimet. 

When it opened in 1955, the course measured 8,040 yards from the back tees and combined steeply pitched greens with challenging bunkers. 

About two decades later, famed architect Robert Trent Jones, Jr. was hired to soften several greens and bunkers but he also lengthened the course to an astounding 8,325 yards.

According to the press release, the revamped Pines Course will be one of the few courses in the region to feature fescue grass on tees, fairways and in the rough. 

Fescue grass courses are typically found in Scotland and Ireland, places where the game was first played. 

These turf conditions, when combined with Coore & Crenshaw’s elevated course architecture, will allow for greater shot diversity and foster an ever-evolving, engaging golf experience on holes framed by sandy waste areas, wispy fescue and stately pitch pines.

“The Pines will check all of these important boxes,” said Celano. “With our recently renovated Oaks course, we now combine 36 holes of exceptional golf with a welcoming club environment and culture rooted in a deep respect for the game and its treasured traditions.”

GolfNewsRI played the Oaks Course back in 2022, just before it hosted LIV Golf Boston. 

At the time when GNRI played, work on the Pines was just getting started.