State plan is dismissed as par for the course
Ponkapoag diehards don't expect overhaul
CANTON - The state is planning an elaborate, multimillion-dollar reconstruction of the famous - some would say infamous - Ponkapoag Golf Course, with changes that include installation of a new drainage system that will stop some chronically soggy fairways from flooding and importing truckloads of peat to raise holes that have sunken from years of neglect.
But ask any of the regulars who show up every afternoon, rain or shine, whether they are excited about the plans, and they offer the same been-there, done-that look as when their partner misses yet another 8-foot putt.
"The state's always saying they're going to improve this place," Bob Bradley said before he teed off one recent sunny afternoon. "It hasn't happened in 50 years."
In Massachusetts, where infrastructure is crumbling, roads are ragged, and some bridges are so shaky that trains have to slow down to cross them, it should probably come as no surprise that state officials have faced enormous challenges accomplishing a seemingly small task: running a 36-hole golf complex.
But more vexing than the state's failure is the perpetually lost potential of Ponkapoag. This isn't just any golf course, but a Donald Ross-designed course, a distinction that puts it in a league with the famed Course No. 2 at Pinehurst in North Carolina and the exclusive Salem Country Club on the North Shore. Ross may be one of the most revered course designers in the history of the sport, but half the holes he created at Ponkapoag's Course No. 1 are overgrown and have been closed to golfers for at least five years. Vast stretches of Course No. 2 are dry and scabby; weeds grow in bunkers. The state has hired consultants to design improvements over the decades, but the plans never come to fruition, gathering dust at taxpayer expense.
All of this has made Ponky, as it is commonly known, a symbol of state mismanagement, if not an outright joke. The 1996 best-selling book "Missing Links" referred to a fictionalized version of Ponkapoag as "the single worst course in America." After visiting Ponkapoag several years ago, United States Golf Association officials declined to consider it as a venue for the US Open, even though they have held championships at other once-beleaguered public golf courses, like Bethpage Black in New York.
Such slights haven't been enough to spark changes in Massachusetts. Despite decades-long problems, officials at the Department of Conservation and Recreation have never leased Ponkapoag to an outside agency and conditions there have only worsened. Donald Crawshaw, the state engineer overseeing the current revitalization plans, said the course needs as much as $35 million in improvements.
"It doesn't reflect well on the Commonwealth to have thousands of golfers being unable to play on a Donald Ross course," he said. "It's a magnificent place."
From the parking lot, Ponkapoag's two courses look like a golfer's dream. Earlier this month, the grass on Ponkapoag's rolling fairways glowed bright green and were shaded by graceful old maples and pines. Course regulars said that by next month, the summer's heat will turn the grass dry and brown. Because the course's irrigation system is old and malfunctions, employees must drag hoses to some of the holes to water them.
A short golf cart drive away from the parking lot, the desert gives way to a bog. This is the third hole on Course No. 1, where 4-foot-tall reeds sway in the breeze along the mucky fairways. It is closed to golfers, as are the fourth through eighth holes and the 11th through 13th, which are badly unkempt and prone to flooding. Off-limits to golfers, all the closed holes were designed by Ross but now are so overgrown that they are havens for hikers and birdwatchers.
"It's a sin," said Ponkapoag golf pro Michael Fleming as he surveyed the course on a recent afternoon.
"You need a boat to get to the green," said Bradley, a retired special-education teacher in Boston.
Yet it is good enough for the Roundos, a motley collection of Ponkapoag diehards who continue to meet for golf at the course, as they have for decades. An assortment of retired teachers, janitors, and golf buffs, several of the diehards were the basis for characters in "Missing Links," which chronicled the exploits of four blue-collar golfers. The Roundos have been fixtures at Ponkapoag for decades, referring to themselves as "members" of the public course because they hold season passes.
Frank "Cementhead" Oliverio, a Roundo who acquired his nickname from his days as a construction worker, said the state does not seem to care that it is sitting on a treasure.
"Golf has become so expensive, there's a cry for more public golf," he said. "A lot of guys can't afford $100 to play."
Bradley scoffed at the notion of state-promised improvements and takes the neglect personally.
"This [course] is for the working-class person," he said. "If this course was in Wellesley and played by the rich, they'd have it fixed in two seconds."
In fact, the state also operates one other golf course, the Leo J. Martin Golf Course in Weston. At both courses, it costs $25 to play golf Friday through Sunday, but the Weston course does not have the massive maintenance problems Ponkapoag does. While the number of starts at the Leo J. Martin Course has remained steady, Ponkapoag has seen a decline in golf starts in the last decade. According to the state, Ponkapoag attendance dropped by 20,000 starts since 1985, to 60,000 last year.
State Senator Brian A. Joyce, a Canton Democrat, said that is because Ponkapoag has gotten so bad that even some of the course's most loyal golfers have abandoned it. He would like to see the golf course bring in state revenue and has proposed a bill that would lease Ponkapoag for 25-year stints to the town of Canton or a private management company. The proposal remains under consideration in the Legislature.
A similar bill failed to pass in the Legislature several years ago. Joyce said it met with resistance from the union representing Ponkapoag's six employees. It was also greeted with opposition from Ponkapoag regulars who feared its rebirth would bring rising greens fees. DCR officials currently back the proposal to offer a long-term lease of Ponkapoag, but, Joyce said, for years they did not.
"There's the natural resistance to change that any organization has. It's easier to maintain the status quo," Joyce said. "The state should not be in the business of running a golf course."
That became clear to some in 1992, when the Metropolitan District Commission, the state agency that then managed Ponkapoag, hired Watertown-based Sasaki Associates to redesign drainage and irrigation systems for the course to solve its flooding problems. While the state paid the company about $700,000 to redesign the course, plans were shelved when funding dried up during the Romney administration.
John Hollywood, a principal at Sasaki, said the project was mired in red tape, a reorganization of the state agencies in charge, environmental concerns, and tensions between state officials and local elected officials who wanted to take control of the course from the state. Hollywood said he met with Ponkapoag's regular golfers in the early 1990s and recalled that they scoffed at the notion that the club would improve.
"After a decade of work on the project," Sasaki said, "I came to appreciate their comments."
More recently, the state hired EA Engineering, Science, and Technology of Maryland to complete new designs for Ponkapoag improvements at a cost of $419,000. And construction is expected to begin this year on $5 million in improvements to the golf course and the leaking Ponkapoag dam.
Those plans are dismissed with knowing smirks among Ponkapoag regulars and Roundos. Roundo numbers are fewer now, down from the 40 or 50 guys who used to meet regularly in the clubhouse. On a recent afternoon, a handful met to play in the rain, trading jabs, telling jokes they deemed "politically incorrect," and settling bets when the game was over.
Oliverio, a janitor in the Westwood public schools, said what he loves about Ponkapoag is that "everything is the exact opposite of what it should be."
It's a mismanaged public course built by a famous designer and mostly frequented by regular working guys.
And "it's water, water everywhere," he said, with a laugh, "except on the greens."
