Fescue · Golf in Whitcombe since 1927

The course

Laid out in 1927.
Left alone since.

Alec Rennie routed the course in one loop, out along Coldbrook and back up through the oaks, so you finish where you started and never wait on a crossing. The land does the work: the fairways roll, the greens are small and old and pitched back to front, and there is exactly one forced carry on the property, and it is a short iron.

The front nine is the gentler half. The back climbs from the tenth, turns for home at the fourteenth, and the fifteenth, a hundred and sixty yards over the creek to a green the size of a living room, is the hole members argue about at the bar.

Hole	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	Out	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	In	Total
Green72.1 / 131	388	412	171	521	356	430	148	498	402	3326	377	192	543	341	418	160	395	507	424	3357	6683
Brass69.4 / 124	352	378	148	486	322	394	128	461	366	3035	341	164	502	310	380	136	358	470	386	3047	6082
Par	4	4	3	5	4	4	3	5	4	36	4	3	5	4	4	3	4	5	4	36	72
Handicap	9	3	15	5	13	1	17	11	7		10	12	2	16	4	18	8	14	6

Yardages to the center of the green. Rating and slope shown beside each tee. Green tees are the back tees; Brass are forward. Scroll sideways for the back nine.

The eleventh green at Fescue, flagstick and bunker in low sun

72Par, from every tee
6,683Yards from the Green tees
4:05The pace we ask for, and usually get

Play here

Daily play. No membership required.

Fescue has taken public tee times since 1934 and never stopped. Book by phone, or email the tee sheet with a date, a time and how many of you there are, and the pro shop will confirm within the hour during shop hours.

Walking is encouraged. Carts stay on the paths after heavy rain, and we will tell you when you book.

Call the pro shop Email the tee sheet

Green fees	Weekday	Weekend & holidays
18 holes	$68	$88
9 holes	$40	$50
TwilightAfter 3pm. Eighteen if the light holds.	$45	$55
JuniorUnder 18, any time	$30	$38
ReplaySame day, space permitting	$30	$40
CartPer rider, 18 holes	$22	$22
CartPer rider, 9 holes	$14	$14
Push cart	$6	$6
Rental setFourteen clubs, decent ones	$35	$35

Rates include tax. Public times open seven days out at 7am; members book fourteen. Weekend mornings before 10 are members only from April through September. Twilight starts at 3pm and shifts with the season; the shop will tell you.

Membership

Three ways to belong. None of them complicated.

Dues are annual, published, and the same for everyone. What you get is the course, whenever you want it, and a booking window a week longer than the public's.

Individual

One golfer

The most common membership. Most members play twice a week and stop counting.

$2,400per year

Unlimited play, seven days a week
Fourteen-day booking window
Range balls included
Member events and the Club Championship
10% off in the grill and the shop
A locker, if you want one

Family

Two adults, the kids

Two adults at one address and any children under 23 living at home.

$3,600per year

Everything in Individual, for both adults
Children play free, any time
Saturday junior clinics included
Two guest passes a month
Family tee times, Sundays after 2
One shared locker, or two

Junior

Under eighteen

For a kid who has caught it. Most of ours started here.

$600per year

Play any time on weekdays
Weekends after noon
Range balls included
Saturday clinics with the pro
One private lesson each season
Junior Championship in August

There is no initiation fee, no food-and-beverage minimum, and no assessments. Pay annually or monthly at no markup, and start any month you like.

Ask about membership Call the shop

Practice

Warm up on real grass.

The range, the short-game area and the lesson tee are open to the public every day the course is. Members practice free; everyone else pays for a bucket.

The practice range at Fescue in the morning, a basket of balls in the foreground

The range

Twenty-two grass stations, targets at 75, 100, 150, 200 and 240 yards, and the balls are new every spring. Open from 7am until an hour before dark. Small bucket $8, large bucket $14, and a monthly range pass for non-members is $60.

Short game

A chipping green with two bunkers, one deep and one shallow, and a nine-thousand-square-foot putting green cut to the same height as the course, so what you practice is what you get on the first.

Dana Whitlock, head professional, on the practice tee

Lessons with Dana

Dana Whitlock has been the head professional since 2014 and has never once told a beginner to buy new clubs. Lessons are on the far end of the range, video if you want it, none if you don't.

Private lesson45 minutes$95
Series of fiveUse them any time in a year$425
Playing lessonNine holes with Dana$180
Couples lesson60 minutes, two people$140
Junior clinicSaturdays at 9, members free$20

Book a lesson

The grill

Open to the public. Open to golfers who quit at the turn.

The Fescue Grill does breakfast from seven, a burger that has been on the menu since 1968, and a short list of beer from three breweries within twenty miles. You do not need a tee time or a membership to eat here. Come in from the road.

April to October7am to 8pm, daily
November to March8am to 5pm, daily
KitchenCloses thirty minutes before

The patio sits above the eighteenth green. Order the burger and watch someone else three-putt.

Tables for eight or more: (555) 555-0128

The club

Ninety-nine years on the Hollis farm.

Fescue opened in May 1927 on what had been the Hollis dairy farm, eighteen holes laid out by a Scottish greenkeeper named Alec Rennie, who walked the property for a month before he let anyone move a shovel of dirt. The routing is still his. The oaks were already here.

The clubhouse burned in 1951 and was rebuilt the next summer in white clapboard on the same footprint, with the porch made twelve feet wider because the members asked. Through the Depression the club stayed open by letting the public play on weekday afternoons, and it never stopped. Semi-private is not a policy here. It is a habit.

1927: Eighteen holes open on the Hollis farm, routed by Alec Rennie.
1934: Weekday public play begins, to keep the lights on. It never stops.
1952: The clubhouse is rebuilt in white clapboard, porch twelve feet wider.
1968: The grill burger goes on the menu. Same recipe today.
2014: Dana Whitlock arrives as head professional.

The Fescue clubhouse, white clapboard with a wide porch, in golden-hour light

Come early. The dew is the best part.

Address

880 Coldbrook Road
Whitcombe
Open in Maps

Turn at the white fence. The drive is a quarter mile of oaks, and the first tee is on your left when you get out of the car.

Pro shop

April to October6:30am to dusk, daily
November to March8am to 4:30pm, weather permitting

Call (555) 555-0127 or write to proshop@fescue.example. Tee times, memberships and lost headcovers all go through the shop.

What to wear

A collared shirt on the course, soft spikes or spikeless shoes, and no denim on the first tee, please. Beyond that, wear what is comfortable.

The patio takes all comers, jeans included, and the shop keeps a loaner polo behind the counter for the day you forgot.

Laid out in 1927.Left alone since.