The only public course in the small town of the same name, Marion has a low green fee but a high pedigree.
Matthew Hart
Jeremiah Daly has never lacked access to good golf, but he knows that not everyone is so lucky, and he believes in leveling the playing field.
His perspective is partly related to his upbringing in Marion, Mass., a small town south of Boston that has two notable courses that are only a few miles apart but operate in different countries.
One is Kittansett, a prestigious William Flynn-designed private club that has long held a spot on the US Top 100 list. The other is Marion Golf Club, a public 9-hole course with high blood pressure. Completed in 1904, it was the first course built by George C. Thomas, years before he stamped his name on the most famous works at Riviera, Bel-Air and Los Angeles Country Club.
Daly, 42, grew up playing both.
At first he says, “I didn’t agree with their lineage.” However, when he graduated from high school, as his interest in golf course design grew, he realized “how amazing it was that this town had Flynn and Thomas.”
How Thomas’s design kept up with it was impressive, too. From the time Daly first played it, Marion GC was maintained by Bruce and Sue Carlson, a husband and wife who lived on site in a log cabin that doubled as a pro shop. In an area without indoor irrigation, Bruce would wake up before the sun to water the vegetables.
If the rustic upkeup gave the course a throwback charm, it also made it easy to take the place with ease.
Daly says: “It was out of place. “But many people in the community played it. It was the only public course in town.”
Years passed. Daly went to college, then went on to work in finance, settling elsewhere in Massachusetts. But he maintained his relationship with Marion and its two subjects. He continued with the news.
In early 2020, word got out that Marion had reached a critical point. After decades of day-to-day care, the Carlsons had decided to call it quits and no one seemed ready to shut it down. The course was held in a private trust. Under its provisions, if the land was not maintained for public golf, it was intended to be converted into a park.
Daly disagreed with that idea. In partnership with Michael Kane, a friend and fellow member of Kittansett who shares his property with a local 9-holer, Daly took over Marion’s lease, closing the deal the week the land was closed to Covid. Two months later, when the state allowed golf classes to resume, “we started our journey,” Daly said.
The goal was twofold: “To complete an old piece of art for fans of golf course architecture, and keep the community part of it.”
For better and for worse, in the century since Thomas designed it, the subject had been left untouched. The first plan of business was to install irrigation under all the greens and vegetables, followed by the development of obscure features: removing trees to disperse the playing channels; uncovering bunkers that had been taken by grass; growing vegetables that have shrunk into small circles over the years.
Two full-time employees came in, a superintendent named Jeff Mello, and Daly’s younger brother, Will, who changed careers midway, leaving his cyber security job to become the golf course director. The bootstrapping effort was easy to pull off. Local people volunteer for basic maintenance tasks. The USGA has offered its expertise with a pro-bono stop that has recently turned into a three-person consultancy on everything from water management to ventilation systems – the most advanced conditions on a shoestring budget.
Matthew Hart
“It’s a golf course for everybody,” said Elliott Downing, an agronomist with the USGA and a key figure on the project’s governing body. “Keeping it affordable and accessible was an important goal from the beginning.”
Four years on the brink of closure, the course is nowhere near being fully restored, but it has been dusted enough for its beauty to shine through. A par-34 of just under 2,700 yards, its design is catnip for architectural connoisseurs, with time capsule features like old stone walls running through eight of the nine holes. Shades of North Berwick is Buzzards Bay.
“It’s charming, comfortable and very interesting,” said Jonathan Sirois, a high school teacher and golf coach at nearby Tabor Academy, who has been in Marion for more than a decade. “And the green, which was always amazingly beautiful, is now different. The whole place punches above its weight.”
Where it doesn’t hit is more than worth it. After the upgrade, the greenbacks jumped by all of $7. It’s $23 for a 9-hole loop, and $35 for a double loop. For $50, you can play all day. A minimum membership of $350 allows unlimited access for a year.
The value, in return, is difficult to quantify. Like many buildings with low barriers to entry, the course provides a social network through competitions and unexpected exits. Cultures are built around it. The solstice event. One club competition. A semi-cutthroat game of Wolf that is contested weekly between friends.
The restoration, meanwhile, is ongoing. Gil Hanse, a renowned architect who first saw Marion while working in Kittansett in the mid-1990s, has been involved in drawing up a long-term plan aimed at getting every detail of Thomas right.
Due to increased rounds and increased sales of merchandise, the course, Daly says, is now close to breaking even. But turning a profit has never been the point. The aim from the beginning, and in the future, is to pour all available money back into the course.
“If you’re into architecture, there’s a lot to like about this place,” said Daly. “But most of all, we want it to be a lesson for everyone.”
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