Brad Klein of “Golfweek” recently toured the remodeled TPC Boston, the work of Gil Hanse, ASCGA. Klein’s positive comments and overall course rating were featured in the Aug. 23rd issue of the magazine.
TPC Boston – which opened in 2003 – is home to the PGA Tour’s Deutsche Bank Championship. Klein noted that professional golfer Brad Faxon played a role in bringing Hanse to the attention of course officials in 2008.
“By then, Hanse already was turning heads with his meticulous historical and horticultural restorations at The Country Club in Brookline, Mass., Quaker Ridge in Scarsdale, N.Y., and Plainfield Country Club in Paramus, N.J.”
Klein writes that Hanse was dedicated to giving the course a “New England feel.”
“That meant doing away with the containment mounds, creating quirky angles of approach, loading the bunker faces and roughs with tall fescue and exposing the rock and stone walls that are found on such sites in the raw. With abundant wildflower areas now serving as buffers into ponds and wetlands and lots of scruffy areas fully in play, the course clearly conveys a sense of place.
“The short, drivable par-4 fourth hole, 298 yards from the back tees…evokes the sensibility of Merion’s 10th hole. And the long, par-5 seventh , 600 yards, has enough lift in the placement of its ‘Hell’s Half Acre’ mid-fairway bunker on the second shot that you know you’re playing the work of a literate architect.
“These moments of inspiration on the outgoing nine become more sustained coming in. Here, especially Nos. 15-18, is where you realize that TPC Boston has some compelling presence.”
Klein’s entire review and rating of TPC Boston can be found here.