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Overseas Golf Travel goes with Super Bowl ritual like Black & Tan

by Hal Phillips 0 Comments

The last time the Patriots met the Seahawks in the Super Bowl, I watched the spectacle in a quiet corner of the clubhouse at Victoria GC, surrounded by a dozen septuagenarian bridge women — and Ben, my buddy’s Aussie brother-in-law. None of these folks knew the first thing about “American football” and it wasn’t so quiet when Pats cornerback Malcolm Butler intercepted Russell Wilson on the goal line to preserve the New England victory. By then, I had successfully won the locals over to the peculiar joys of both the NFL and the Belichick/Brady Patriots in their heyday.

I was reminded of that curious Super Bowl Monday Down Under when the Seahawks nipped the Rams in the NFC Championship Game on 25 January, setting up- a rematch of the 2015 affair. What’s more, I realized that I’ve gathered a rich history of watching NFL title games abroad under curiously golf-adjacent circumstances:

• In 1985, during a semester abroad, I watched the San Francisco 49ers eviscerate the Miami Dolphins in a block of expat-student housing in Baker Street. Earlier that same Sunday evening, I had met up with my future teammates on the University of London golf team — inside a nearby pub on Marylebone High Street called The Prince. Most convenient, but poorly timed, for I was not yet attuned to the dangers of taking in U.S. sporting events from Europe. My American friends in Baker Street and I indulged as any Yanks would during a Super Bowl, but complications ensued: When kickoff doesn’t arrive until 11 p.m. (or 23:00), one must show strict drinking discipline — something college students generally do not possess. Yes, the second half got ugly.

• Twelve years later (and presumably wiser), I traveled to England again — this time for the British & International Golf Greenkeepers Association conference in the West Yorkshire town of Harrogate. Sunday morning, after a muddy round at The Shropshire in Telford, I boarded the train for London because, that night, the Patriots were set to face the Packers in Super Bowl XXXI. By now you may have gathered that I’m a Masshole (a legit designation now enshrined in the Oxford English Dictionary; how do you like them apples?). I couldn’t miss this game! I didn’t arrive at my lodgings — The Carnegie Club’s swank urban outpost in Sloan Square — until 21:00, and I wasn’t at all prepared for what I found: Maybe the most beautiful suite of rooms in which I’d ever set foot. Still, I dumped my stuff and immediately humped it north, around Green Park to a Leicester Square sports bar. Thoroughly plowed and heartbroken by the Green Bay victory, I stumbled outside at 02:30. The Tube shuts down at midnight, so I hailed a cab: “Sloan Square please,” I slurred. That’s quite a long ride, Guv. “I have 20 quid.” Off we went. When I came to the next morning — my mouth tasting, as the English say, like the inside of a dog’s arse — Heathrow beckoned. Total waking hours spent in these magnificent digs? Maybe .75.

Which leads us halfway round the world, back to 2015 in Australia, where I had arranged a morning round at the magnificent Victoria GC — in the heart of Melbourne’s fabled Sand Belt (Royal Melbourne is directly next door) — to enable proper, collegial consumption of Super Bowl XLIX. Ben had warned me ahead of time: The game might not be available inside the clubhouse that Monday lunchtime. Props to the GM, who set me up in front of a lovely flat screen, flipped to the right channel, showed me the bar, and asked only that I not disturb the bridge games.

Please believe me: I did not foist this occasion on any of my new friends, but Aussies fancy themselves to be quite “sporty” and eventually their curiosity got the better of them. By the second half, two pints to the good, I was peppered with questions about why this had happened, and what sort of infraction had necessitated that. The ladies especially were truly engaged, perhaps engrossed, by the time Malcolm Butler intercepted Russell Wilson’s Super Bowl-winning pass on the goal line. When the Pats cornerback collapsed in an emotional heap during the immediate post-game celebration, this beautiful moment required no cultural translation.

Sport allows for this sort of exchange, of course, in ways few things can. Back in Harrogate, that same Super Bowl weekend in 1997, I had spent Saturday night catching up with an old university mate inside the Hotel Majestic. The English national cricket team was in New Zealand, playing a test match into the wee hours, so we holed up in the hotel bar to watch and “have a natter.”

To truly appreciate cricket (and rugby, for that matter), an American requires tutelage. In between reminiscences, I would pose a question as to what we had just witnessed, and Trevor would explain. For example, a proper test match takes five days to complete. If the side with more runs doesn’t get the opponent all out, twice, before the five days are up, the match ends in a draw. As the wee hours and empty pint glasses spread out before us, I asked whether the two sides might agree to skip afternoon tea on the fifth day — you know, in order to get the match finished and decided.

Trevor dismissed this absurd notion with mock indignation: “You can’t skip tea!”

Wallpaper Takeaways: Royal Lytham & St. Annes

by Hal Phillips 0 Comments

[I tend to spend a lot of time at the computer. In 2025, I started collecting fun golf course images to use as wallpaper on my oversized monitor. The better ones stay in place for several weeks, allowing for detailed scrutiny and study. I decided to share some of the most thought-provoking examples here.]

1) This one image shows the better part of four golf holes (7-10), a substantial dune ridge, greats swaths of multi-hued vegetation, and a public walking path — all of it tightly surrounded by a densely populated suburban neighborhood. Total course acreage: 90. Perspective: Merion GC is considered a small parcel for golf. It sits on 124 acres. 

2) Still, there is room here for a massive and completely ornamental blowout bunker (top left) that does nothing but looks great. 

3) How do you get 7,118 yards into such a small space? Observe the tournament teeing ground below the blowout bunker. That box serves the mainly off-camera 11th hole. There’s a similar walk back to 8 tee, off-camera bottom right. Of course, most members wouldn’t dream of playing these back tees, so day-to-day safety issues are greatly reduced. 

4) The Old Course at St Andrews famously plays its course backwards once a year, but many GBI clubs do the same. Observe how beautifully these four would play in the opposite direction. To boot: Check out the awesome par-3 from that back tee at 11 to the 8th green (GBI clubs often play so-called “cross-country” tournaments with similarly gerrymandered holes & routings). 

5) This aerial was snapped, by photography guru Gary Lisbon, at exactly the right height. Too many are taken from 30 feet or higher, which tends to flatten out fairway contours especially. Look at the lovely humps and hollows here, even those in the distance. Perfectly captured.  

6) Lytham had sought the 2026 Open to celebrate the centenary of Bobby Jones’ famous victory here. Birkdale will host instead. Championship golf can be accommodated at Royal LSA (as recently as 2012), but it’s getting harder to imagine 30,000 spectators here, too. Or merch tents. This image shows why. 

Fescue Programs: A Roadside Meditation

by Hal Phillips 0 Comments

Driving home from a dreamy golf excursion, author Hal Phillips noticed wispy grasses glistening alongside a newly widened stretch of a busy interstate. Their presence raised questions about the agronomics of incorporating a linksy feature into inland settings.

[Ed. This essay was first published in the November 2026 print edition of Golf Course Industry magazine. It’s posted in its entirety here. And yes: Fescue Program would make a great band name.]

In this Age of Identity, is Augusta National Now Presenting as … a bit Aussie?

by Hal Phillips 0 Comments

AUGUSTA, Ga. — Is it me, or did the 2024 Masters Tournament concluded last month exude a subtle-but-fascinating Antipodean vibe? I’m not talking about the field itself (though I do think ESPN and CBS could have done with an Aussie Cam, to track the progress of Mssrs. Davis and Smith), but rather the course itself. I came away convinced that the 2024 presentation at Augusta National Golf Club has subtly moved closer to the Sand Belt stylings of Royal Melbourne, as opposed to the iconic American parkland for which ANGC has for many decades served as standard-bearer.

The Good Doctor, Alister MacKenzie, laid out all 18 holes at ANGC (with Robert Tyre Jones) and all 36 at RMGC (with Alex Russell) some 90 years ago. In Georgia, architect George Cobb subsequently authored several changes during the 1950s and ’60s. Yet most golf fans recognize that, between major championships, this golf course is routinely renovated and tweaked. Last week’s telecast revealed a few new cupping areas, enabled by reworked contours on and around the putting surfaces. A few loblolly pines have also gone missing, some by design, some due to old age, and some out of an abundance of caution, due to the massive tree limb that fell to earth during last year’s tournament.

Augusta National rarely comments on any of these adjustments, as we’ve come to expect. What’s more, its broadcaster partners scrupulously (some would say obsequiously) follow the club’s lead in this regard. As do the course design and construction professionals who carry out this annual off-season adjustment work.

Still, I noticed a few things that felt new, and all of them struck me as rather Australian.

First, the bunker edges at Augusta National are looking more and more like something we’d see at Royal Melbourne, Kingston Heath or Metropolitan. I’m not sure when this edging practice actually started, in Augusta, but this year I noticed for the first time just how much of the soil profile is visible at the top of the greenside bunkers especially. Either way, this is very much a stylistic flourish associated with the top courses in Australia, especially those in the famed Sand Belt region south of Melbourne.

The modifier design nerds like to deploy when describing this style of bunker edge is “sharp”. The definition of said edge is indeed very neat and clean, and balls don’t trickle down a collar or embankent into these bunkers: They drop in, directly. To be clear, I’m not about to claim that this style was instituted course-wide this past winter. More likely, it’s been introduced already, perhaps in a few spots, and expanded to include most every green complex, save 14, where no bunkers exist.

Aussie/Sand Belt bunkers and those at Augusta National have long shared two more qualities: steep faces and flat bottoms. This shared characteristic typically means a ball hits the face, doesn’t embed, and rolls back down to a fairly level bunker floor. This architectural choice has a competitive aspect (anything buried in the face would result in a terrifically difficult recovery shot) and an ease-of-maintenance aspect. It also looks smart.

We can agree Augusta National’s bunkers have presented and played this way for years. It seems to me the club has finally added this soil-forward edging presentation to fully complement the effect.

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Developers Gonna Develop: So, Let’s Not Sneeze at Golf’s Flexible Utility

by Hal Phillips 0 Comments

This story in The New York Times, published mid-February 2024, struck a chord. Not because I’m a golfer, but because I’ve written quite a lot about abandoned golf courses, the re-wilding of courses, even the resuscitation of courses gone fallow. As long ago as 1994, the NYT has even seen fit to quote me on the subject of how many golf courses is enough, and how many legitimately eco-friendly credentials an operative golf course can claim.

This recent Times piece proved a solid piece of reporting, and the comments section was chock full of even more examples of layouts that have been returned, in full and in part, to open space. In each case, everyone appreciated the fact that here was a gorgeous piece land where the public could now hike, walk their dogs, bird-watch, etc.

In a golf economy where 150 courses were shuttered annually — a culling the U.S. golf market endured every year from 2008 to 2021 — what to do with former course properties proved a fairly pressing issue. But that market correction appears got have stabilized. There were approximately 90 golf course closures in the U.S. last year (as measured in 18-hole equivalents), according to the National Golf Foundation. There were also more new course openings in 2023 than at any time since 2010: 24 18-HEQ.

For a variety of reasons, the golf establishment will always be expected argue for just how sustainable golf courses should be, as golf courses, and how many of them (and what sort of facilities) we really need, full stop. But it’s important to think about these issues in two different ways:

First, the issue actually hinges in critical respects on access. The real problem, in America, is that private clubs here are so very private. The idea that non-members in a particular community might use a private golf course property as open space is pretty much anathema. Whereas, in the U.K. and Australia, and across Europe, it’s common place. There, even the most private clubs often double as places where non-members can play golf — but also walk their dogs, cross-country ski, even hike. More important, this ethos trickles down to all courses, where golfers treat the property as a playground, while an even larger population of non-golfing locals treat them as quasi-public spaces.

We don’t do that here in the United States. Our private clubs are very exclusive in comparison — and this attitude trickles down, too. One doesn’t see walking paths for non golfers (and their dogs) even at public and municipal courses in the U.S. Why not? This is something the golf course industry can and should work to address. Why not build community walking and biking trails through public courses, which account for some 90 percent of the golf course facilities in America? Read all those comments on the Feb. 2024 NYT story above: Folks just want to walk these properties with their dogs, maybe hike a bit, or ride their bikes on these decommissioned course properties. If this is what the community seeks, and these activities can be enjoyed inside and beside operative golf courses, why not be a better neighbor? Who knows, you might sell more food & drink in your grille room, or find new customers for your banquet facility.

Second, it’s critical that golfers and non-golfer alike recognize that courses offer a level of flexibility that other development categories do not. As February’s NYT story illustrates, even golf courses that viably served a golf population for decades can pivot to other public services quite quickly and easily. I’m not sure that I agree with the subhead above: that most courses are in some way “paved over”. Many of the golf courses closed down the last 20 years were decommissioned to make room for housing, something desperately needed in this country. If that’s what we mean by “paving,” that’s another outcome I can live with. Yet here again, not all developments allow for such repurposing, not with such relative ease.

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What’s a Design Nerd to Think, “When Nines Don’t Match”?

by Hal Phillips 0 Comments

[Ed. This piece appeared 25 years ago in a magazine called TravelGolf Maine founded by a fellow named Park Morrison. It didn’t last long (1998-2001) and, sadly, Park passed away last year. I’m including the story here because surely it never made it online — and because it appeared, in print, under a favorite pen name of mine. Another serendipitous fact: When I traveled to Lovell, Maine to “research” the story, the course ranger, lounging in a cart parked by the first tee at Lake Kezar CC, was none other than Bill Bissett, retired athletic director at Hudson (Mass.) High, one of the schools covered by The Hudson Daily Sun, where I served sports editor from 1989-90.]

By Henry Choi

Opinions differ when it comes to appraising so-called schizo layouts, those courses where one nine barely resembles the other. In northern New England — where scads of nines were laid out in the 1920s and ‘30s, only to be expanded many decades later by different architects — the issue is more salient than perhaps anywhere in America. Because there are just so many of them, the question remains: Does one decry the stylistic divergence or applaud the diversity?

Two courses in the border regions of Maine and New Hampshire inform the debate. North Conway Country Club and Lake Kezar CC are separated by 20 miles. And yet, the nines on each course feel even further apart, light years in fact, when it comes to style, terrain and vintage. That both tracks remains such good fun tips our fledgling debate toward applause.

This part of New England is remote but hardly underdeveloped. The resort nature of North Conway, N.H., cannot be lost on first-time visitors to its eponymous, semi-private country club, where the 1st tee is set back just 50 yards from a bustling main drag replete with myriad factory outlets, hotels and restaurants. Indeed, the clubhouse at NCCC sits directly beside the Conway Scenic Railway Station, a massive, red-roofed, Victorian-era structure painted a vivid shade of yellow.

It’s quite a sight, but nothing like the vista next door. The 1st at NCCC (the image above) is one of the great opening holes in all of New England, a 418-yard par-4 with long views of Cathedral Rock in the distance and, of more pressing concern, O.B. all along the left side. It takes some real concentration to block it all out and belt one — right over the train tracks! — to a fairway 70 feet (!) below.

Don’t get the wrong idea, however. The remaining golf at North Conway CC isn’t about dramatic elevation changes. At all. After this inaugural plunge, the course plays entirely in the subtly contoured flood plain of the Saco River. It’s scenic — with the river running through it and White Mountains surrounding it — but it’s relatively flat and eminently walkable.

The opening nine here dates to 1928, when Ralph Barton, a protégé of Seth Raynor, reworked a older, rudimentary loop. The charm of these opening holes lies in the subtleties of their small, steeply pitched greens guarded closely by deep bunkers. The 4th is a wonderful short hole, a make-or-break 140-yard pitch to a putting surface that falls away steeply on all sides. Every so often the land here does move with surprising drama. The 354-yard 5th plays right along the river; the back tee calls for a drive across a bend in the Saco to a swaled landing area, which is then crossed by a stream at 240 yards. The green looks harmless enough, until you look over the back side and see the ground fall away steeply some 20 feet.

The second nine at North Conway arrived much later, in the mid-1960s, courtesy of New Hamster-based architect Phil Wogan, and no — the two loops do not go together stylistically. The front side putting surfaces are set mostly at grade, while the bulk of Wogan’s greens are raised up in mid-century mode made fashionable by Robert Trent Jones, Sr. Yet the backside putting surfaces are quite cool and challenging in their own right, especially the saddle job at the par-3 13th — and the epic volcano that sits at the business end of the sublime-but-potentially-cruel, 434-yard, par-4 14th.

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If a Tree Falls (or falls ill) at Augusta National, Does it Make a Sound?

by Hal Phillips 5 Comments

Ed. I’ve contributed dozens of stories to GOLF Magazine through the years (I’ve served on the mag’s world top 100 course-rating panel since 1997). But none landed with such a thud as this one, published in the March 1999 edition. In 24 years, I had heard nothing re. the ill-health or subsequent removal of diseased loblolly pines at Augusta National GC — until April 7, 2023, when a massive tree fell during the second round of Masters Tournament play. See comments below… Of course, trees are removed, tees are added, and greens are thoroughly renovated at ANGC and we hear nothing about those events, either — not until the club issues an official statement, or we see it on television the second weekend in April. The place is leak-proof. For the record, The Eisenhower Tree pictured above was a loblolly pine. It was taken down in 2014, because it was hit by lightening. Or so reads the party line.

•••

AUGUSTA, Ga. — Overlooking each fairway like a glowering gallery of green giants, the stately Georgia pines here at Augusta National Golf Club represent arguably the most recognizable feature at a course replete with recognizable features. Because The Masters is the lone major championship played at the same venue year after year, competitors, spectators and television viewers have established an unrivaled connection with and affection for Augusta National. Where else could a slow-moving stream and a few magnolia beds take on such mythic, eye-moistening qualities? Of course, fabled Rae’s Creek comes into play on just three holes whereas the towering pines frame nearly every shot. Their lower limbs pruned up to 100 feet, these majestic loblollies stand silent, like so many Doric columns, quietly lining the verdant corridors of America’s foremost golfing shrine.

Okay, reality check: Nothing lives forever. The patrician powers-that-be at Augusta National may have kept commercialism at relative bay and held the price of a chicken salad sandwich under $3, but they can’t fight Mother Nature. Trees are organic. They die, and a number of Augusta’s trademark loblolly pine are doing just that; some allege before their time.

Loblolly pine (Pinus taeda), which comprise 90 percent of the trees at the National, can be felled by myriad “stress factors,” as arborists like to call them: lightning strikes, disease, root pathogens, even the dreaded southern pine beetle. They can also whither and die following long, healthy lives of some 300 years in their natural, forest environment. Yet some of Augusta’s prized loblolly aren’t so healthy and may not witness their second century of shot-making — or so say certain tree-savvy visitors to Augusta who have noticed a change. Robust loblollies sport needles so darkly green they appear almost black from a distance. However, a disturbing jaundice has afflicted the relatively young pines that stand hard along Augusta’s 18th fairway — a clear sign of ill health, the experts say. Last year, during his first trip back to Augusta in a quarter century, architect Desmond Muirhead was floored by their lack of vitality. Other veteran observers of Augusta, most of whom insist on anonymity, believe there is a problem in paradise.

In his forthcoming book, “The Masters: Golf, Money and Power in Augusta, Georgia” (published by Villard, a division of Random House), author Curt Sampson isn’t nearly so discrete. He alleges that many more loblolly pine, especially those positioned along Augusta’s fairways, are suffering from poor health — a matter not unrelated, he says, to the club’s obsession with Edenic course conditions. Tipped off to the pine problem by his friend Muirhead, Sampson maintains misplaced fertilizer and overzealous irrigation practices have wrought considerable havoc with the loblollies, which are xerophytes — a fancy word for plants accustomed to dryer conditions. Further, for many years Augusta National maintained turfgrass well into wooded areas off the fairways. Today, this practice is an acknowledged horticultural no-no, as experts agree that trees and grass compete for the same nutrients.

Sampson — who claims to have consulted “an arborist who worked with Augusta National” but won’t name him — asserts the ailing loblollies, overfed for too long, have been living too fast and will die young. “If you stand on a promontory like the 10th tee,” Sampson says, “you can see the difference between the interior trees and those along the fairway; it’s like new denim compared to faded blue jeans. The pine lining certain fairways are saggy and yellowish. The difference is striking.”

There are significant factors to ponder when considering anything at Augusta National Golf Club, especially an unauthorized book alleging what amounts to horticultural malpractice. First, only Chairman Jack Stephens can speak for the club, meaning horticulturist Tom Crenshaw and consulting arborist Ken Knox cannot publicly address Sampson’s assertions. Second, while Augusta employees are allowed to share pertinent research information with colleagues, few people in the golf industry care to speak “on the record” regarding the National, so extensive and powerful is the club’s reach. Arborists enthusiastic about discussing golf courses issues tend to become quite concerned with anonymity when the course is Augusta National.

That said, there are some meaningful distinctions to draw when discussing the health and life expectancy of trees on any golf course. First and foremost, experts agree they simply don’t live as long on golf courses as they might in a natural forested environment. Indeed, trees don’t live as long in any man-made setting, as it’s impossible to duplicate the complexity of any tree’s natural ecosystem — the ecosystem most conducive to maximum life expectancy.

“A tree living outside its natural environment — on a golf course, a city street or a suburban lawn — is far more likely to encounter stress factors incited by humans,” explains Dr. Jay Stipes, a plant pathologist at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Va. “For example, soil compaction: Feet and tires compact the soil, reducing pore space for oxygen. Too much compaction and roots get oxygen deprivation, and they begin to die.”

“Golf course trees simply do not live as long as forest trees, all things being equal,” said one arborist who is familiar with the situation at Augusta National but requested anonymity. “Only a fool would say no trees are unhealthy at Augusta. It’s not a magical place. God isn’t treating Augusta any differently. But it would be very unfair to say they’re dying prematurely… Of the 20, 30 or 40 things that play a role in tree health, water and fertilization play relatively minor roles. Augusta isn’t different from any other golf course; they have problems. But, if anything, the life span of these trees has been enhanced by the work being done there. That’s for sure.”

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Late-Nineties Flashback: The Great Maine Golf Course Binge

by Hal Phillips 0 Comments

[Ed. This piece from 1998 was assigned and purchased by, but to my knowledge never appeared in, Downeast Magazine. At that time, the U.S. was opening 400 new golf facilities every year. When I moved to New Gloucester that same year, only Fairlawn GC and Poland Spring existed nearby. In 2-3 years, Fox Ridge in Auburn (pictured above), Spring Meadow in Gray, and Toddy Brook in North Yarmouth all opened for play. Heady times, as the story below relates. The correction arrived in 2008, when the U.S. golf course stock began to suffer a net loss of some 150 golf facilities each year. That annual trend slowed somewhat during Covid, but not much.]

Developers of water parks don’t venture into the amusement industry because they’re particularly enamored of sharing flume capsules shaped like giant logs with so many screaming adolescents. Nor do hoteliers invest in that business because they “have a thing” for walking down antiseptic hallways looking for ice machines. It’s understood these business decisions are calculated — based on demographics, market niches, the potential for profit and perhaps a paucity of existing competitors. Romantic notions don’t often enter into feasible commercial equations.

Golf is a different animal, an arena where the line between work and play has always been somewhat blurred. While “business” conducted on the golf course remains a genteel hybrid of recreation and vocation, data gatherers at the National Golf Foundation (NGF) — the industry’s research and information organization based in Jupiter, Fla. — are continually amazed at the scads of starry-eyed golf devotees who fund/build their own facilities because it’s always been their dream. “It’s sort of like, ‘What do I want to do when I grow up?’ ” said Barry Frank, a vice president at NGF. “Unfortunately, a great number of shirts have been lost in this process.”

Even so, new golf construction continues to boom nationally and Maine’s dreamers have proved no less fanciful in their ambitions. An astounding number of golf course projects, many spearheaded by first-time golf developers, are now underway here in Vacationland. A dozen new 18-hole layouts have just opened or remain in some phase of construction while another 10 facilities are adding nine. When Point Sebago Golf and Beach Resort opened for play in 1996, it was Maine’s first new 18-hole course since 1988. This sort of inactivity won’t characterize the next eight years.

“As a former banker, I know golf construction in Maine has lagged in past years, especially compared with national growth patterns,” said Arnold Roy, a Turner resident whose development syndicate, Fox Ridge Partners, will soon break ground on an 18-hole course in Harmon’s Corner, on Auburn’s south side. “We know there’s another golf course going in 15 miles down the road in Gray, but in the last 20 years there have been no new golf holes built within 20 miles of our site. And the interest in golfing has never been higher, as far as I can tell.”

Following another national trend, Fox Ridge will be laid out on former farm land — so will the Gray course [Spring Meadows], a project developed by the owners of Cole Farms Restaurant on a fallow parcel directly across the street. Agricultural pursuits have also given way to golf down in Berwick; father and son Tim and Tom Flynn obviously believe their 160-acre parcel will prove more fertile when Outlook Farm Golf Club opens for play there next summer.

“I think what we’re seeing is pent-up demand,” said Brian Silva, the course architect who designed Outlook Farm. “Maine has been underdeveloped, in terms of golf for some time now. And the state certainly has its share of farmland which has seen better, more productive days.”

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