CSM to Christen Sassamon Trace GC Sept. 1

Contact Hal Phillips
Phillips Golf Media
207-926-3700
onintwo@maine.rr.com

NATICK/SHERBORN, Mass. (August 28, 2001) -- Sassamon Trace Golf Course, a unique 9-holer which straddles the town line separating these two Boston suburbs, will open for public play Sept. 1.

Course architects Cornish, Silva and Mungeam (CSM) routed four holes in Natick atop the town's former landfill. The other five holes at Sassamon Trace play through an apple orchard in neighboring Sherborn. The par-32, 2,385-yard course includes five inventive par-3s, a trio of strategic par-4s, and a 529-yard par-5 ominously dubbed "Amphipod".

"Sassamon is an 'executive' length course and it was created with kids and beginners in mind, but there's nothing 'executive' about the design," said associate architect Tim Gerrish, who directed the project for Uxbridge, Mass.-based CSM. "It's exciting to take a former landfill, reclaim it for recreational use and give something back to the town. It's like the old saying: We made a silk purse from a sow's ear."

Gerrish was uniquely qualified to head up the Sassamon Trace project. His post-graduate thesis at UMass Amherst, entitled "Contours of Trash", studied the relationship between sanitary landfills nationwide and the linksland style of golf course design. Received with honors in 1998, the paper was also prescient: The past few years have seen a proliferation of golf course construction atop capped landfills, as developers seek parcels in densely populated areas and municipalities seek revenue-generating applications for otherwise unproductive land.

Indeed, a new CSM-designed layout in Peabody, Mass. (to open this fall) features six holes reclaimed from a former industrial-waste site.

"The nuts and bolts of designing and building a golf course on a former landfill site are pretty complicated," Gerrish explained. "Suffice to say, you can't dig too deep when creating course features; you're obliged to build features from the ground up. You've also got to make sure the gases which build up beneath a landfill cap have safe and predictable containment."

To wit: The 9th at Sassamon Trace, a 367-yard par-4 called "Methane".

"The landfill holes at Sassamon Trace are treeless and it can get pretty windy," Gerrish continued, "but they're not links-style holes. That said, we did utilize the landfill's steep side-slope as a strategic element, defining the right edge of several holes."

The town expects the new clubhouse, designed by Weaver & Associates of Belmont, Mass., to be ready for the 2002 season. Newton, Mass.-based Sterling Management will operate the facility via a three-year lease agreement with the town of Natick, which subleases with the orchard owner in Sherborn.

"There's additional land owned by a Natick resident that would conceivably allow for future expansion," added Gerrish. "It's been discussed but nothing's on the drawing board right now."

With original designs and course restorations underway up and down the East Coast, Cornish, Silva and Mungeam is currently at work at several ambitious, high-profile projects in Massachusetts, including partner Mark Mungeam's LeBaron Hills (a private club to open this fall in Lakeville), partner Brian Silva's Redtail Golf Club (a soon-to-open, upscale daily-fee on former Fort Devens property in Ayer) and Black Rock, a Silva-designed private club that will debut in Hingham next year.

Yet Sassamon Trace is but one example of CSM's continued commitment to affordable, grass-roots golf development. Another is the Fore Kicks project in Norfolk, where CSM broke ground in August on a 9-hole, par-3 layout.

"The Fore Kicks course is noteworthy because it's going to be such a versatile facility," said Gerrish, who is directing CSM's work in Norfolk. "It will be a perfect place for kids to learn the game. All the holes are between 75 and 150 yards. But it will also be a great place for accomplished players to work on their short games. The land is a former sand and gravel pit, so we've designed 9 beautiful greens that bleed off into the surrounding waste bunkers. There will be no formal bunkers, just exposed sand and fescues around the bentgrass putting surfaces."

keywords: Sassamon Trace Golf Club, Cornish, Silva and Mungeam, CSM, Tim Gerrish, Weaver & Associates