BOLTON, Mass – The Pines Course at the International was known for quite awhile as the longest golf course in the world. It covered a whopping 8,325 yards.
But it had outlived its lengthy reputational. So Escalante Golf, which owns the International, hired golf course architects Coore & Crenshaw of Austin, Texas, to design a new course to replace the Pines, not simply to tweak the old one.
“It’s fairly rare,” International director of golf Paul Celano said of building an entirely new course on the site of an existing one, “but you also don’t get Coore & Crenshaw to do many designs. So when Bill walked the area a number of times six or seven years ago, he saw a different routing than the original golf course.”
Bill Coore formed his own design firm in 1982 and Ben Crenshaw joined him three years later. Crenshaw is a two-time Masters champion. They’ve designed more than three dozen courses, but this is only their second in New England. They designed Old Sandwich GC in Plymouth in 2004.
Celano said a change to the Pines was necessary.
“It wasn’t that it was too hard,” Celano said, “because players today can play almost anything. It just didn’t play the way it was designed.”
Trees that were once 10 feet high had grown to 50 feet high. So the course didn’t play the way it was intended to play.
Celano said Escalante Golf will spend about $50 million on the International, including the $10 million it paid to purchase the club out of bankruptcy in February of 2021.
Escalante owns 24 golf clubs.
The hope was that the new course would open this fall, but Celano said it probably won’t open next May or June.
It is believed The Pines will be the first new 18-hole course to open in Massachusetts in more than a decade.
The International’s new course will still be called the Pines, but almost everything else about it will be different than the original. Coore & Crenshaw have carved out an interesting, challenging layout that should be more enjoyable to play.
Most new holes don’t play in the same direction as those on the old course. There are a lot of waste areas with fescue.
The new design will be about 1,200 yards shorter and 15 of the 18 holes will follow different corridors.
No. 5 is a 430-yard par 4 which cuts across the former fourth green, the fifth tees, the third fairway, the 12th fairway and back up to the former Tiger tee on 13.
The new green is located just short of the former 13th tee. Most of No. 5 used to be trees, except for where the third and 12th fairways were.
The fairway of the 525-yard, par-5 seventh hole on the new Pines course runs along where the eighth and ninth holes were at Twin Springs GC, a nine-hole public course which has closed. About 1,500 trees were removed from behind the old ninth tee and eighth green of Twin Springs.
The green used to be 105 yards long by 42 yards wide on the 715-yard, par-5 fifth hole. No. 16 on the new course will play 145 yards from the back tees, but can play as short as 85 yards, shorter than the green was on the former No. 5.
Celano jokingly referred to No. 16 as the shortest par 5 in New England because the bunker to the left of the green is 15 feet deep, there’s a pot bunker to the right and the green is small. So there could be a lot of double-bogey 5s.
There will be three par 3s of at least 225 yards. No. 10 will be 245.
“It’s a completely new design,” Celano said. “It’s not a renovation, it’s not a reimagination, it’s a new design.”
Like most Coore & Crenshaw courses, the Pines will have a driveable par 4, a short par 3 and a short par 5, which they like to call a par 4-½.
The short 3 is No. 16. The eighth hole is a driveable par 4 of 290-345 yards. No. 4 is a 500-yard, par 5. There are also three long par 3s of more than 230, Nos. 3, 10 and 14. No. 6 is close to 200.
Celano said all of the buildings on the property will be torn down and a new clubhouse will be constructed.
The first golf course on the site was a nine-hole, public course called Runaway Brook that opened in 1901. Albert Surprenant purchased the club in 1953 and hired Geoffrey Cornish to build the world’s longest 18-hole course. Paul Harney and Francis Ouimet assisted him. The Pines opened two years later at 8,040 yards from the back Tiger tees. No, the tees weren’t named after Tiger Woods. He hadn’t even been born yet.
International Telephone & Telegraph (ITT) bought the club in 1961 and changed the name to the International six years later. In 1972, Robert Trent Jones oversaw a renovation and the course was lengthened to 8,325 yards.
Dan and Florence Weadock acquired the International in 1999 and hired Tom Fazio to design his first golf course in New England. The Oaks opened in 2001, making the International one of the few private, 18-hole clubs in New England.
Dustin Johnson won a LIV Golf event at the Oaks in 2022.
To become a member of the International, contact the membership director Ana Orlov at ana.orlov@theinternational.com.
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