Springfield Offers More than Roundball Hall of Fame

By: Joel Zuckerman


My Princeton-educated niece was for many years the pastry chef at Manhattan's most highly acclaimed French restaurant. She wrote an attention-getting cookbook, made her way onto several of the national network morning talk shows, and then retired from the "up at 3 a.m." life to raise her three children. In short, no dummy.

However, many years ago as a young adult, Kate innocently posed a sincere question to me that I found hilarious then, and despite the passage of time, still do. Asking about the presence of the Basketball Hall of Fame in my hometown of Springfield, Mass., Katie inquired, "Why is the Hall of Fame located here? Is it because this town doesn't have anything else?" Apparently, her Ivy League professors never expounded on Dr. James Naismith, the Canadian who taught at Springfield College, and in 1891 invented basketball as an indoor diversion during the winter months. But Kate's point was well taken.

Springfield is by most objective measures, an unmitigated disaster. High crime rates, racial tension, disaffected youth, burned-out buildings, urban decay, organized crime, government corruption, lack of decent jobs, just another dying New England mill town clinging to quasi-relevancy. The final nail in the coffin is being driven in by the sparkling new casino that will soon sprout from the otherwise-barren streets of the downtown area. Rest assured that 10 years after the first nickel is dropped into that shiny new slot machine the city will be in even worse shape than now, although how much lower it can go is a matter of conjecture.

However, there is one thing the region known as the Pioneer Valley can offer the wider world. Three fine public-access golf courses that challenge the skills, sustain the interests and buoy the spirits of traveling golfers. They are located within about an hour of each other, and no more than 40-odd minutes from the city itself, The Ranch, The Orchards and Crumpin-Fox are excellent reasons to visit an area that is probably more famous for having a pair of Bob Lanier's size-22 sneakers on display at the Hall than for any golf offering most players have heard of.

The Ranch is in the country town of Southwick, west of the city. The capacious property is located at the former country retreat of the Crane Paper Company, barons of the bond-paper industry and developers of cloth-embedded stock that became a U.S. Treasury Standard for counterfeit-resistant currency. The Damien Pascuzzo design is both brainy and sporty, rumbling along the base of a north-south ridge, then spiraling into wooded uplands. The course narrows and widens, rambles uphill and down, the closing holes on each nine as steeply canted as any blue ski run one might find at a nearby Vermont ski hill. Bunker styling is diverse, although most are oversized. This is as pleasing a walk through the New England woods as one can imagine.

The Orchards is in the college town of South Hadley, best known as the home of Mount Holyoke College, but within striking distance of Smith, Amherst, and the University of Massachusetts, among other institutions. This is a Donald Ross antiquity from 1922, and boasts the tournament legacy that the other featured courses cannot hope to replicate. Along with lesser events like the U.S. Women's Junior Championship and the Massachusetts Amateur it also hosted the U.S. Women's Open in 2004, where Meg Mallon won her second Open, besting Annika Sorenstam by two shots.

There's plenty of action to be found on a course that measures less than 6,600 yards, albeit spread out on a generous 160 acres. Creeks that both bifurcate and frame the rumpled fairways provide some of the challenge. Quirky lies, funny bounces and stands of thick hardwoods provide more, while the Ross-designed greens do the rest. The gauntlet that needs to be negotiated is the quartet of par-4s from the 12th through the 15th. This run of holes takes place near the property's highest terrain, with full view of the Springfield skyline (such as it is) off to the south. In particular, the triumphantly long and straight 14th comes to mind, including the strategically suggestive bunkers sitting just 100 or so yards from the tee.

Finally, Crumpin-Fox Club in the border town of Bernardston, just south of the Vermont state line and not 10 minutes from Interstate 91, is likely the best of the bunch. Envisioned by Roger Rulewich, who worked under Robert Trent Jones for decades, this is a show-stopping series of hard-bending par-4s, plunging, or across-the-ravine par-3s, and one of the most scintillating par-5s in the Northeast. The mighty eighth is hemmed in by woods on the right, and an evil lake the length of the left side. Bubba could smite his pink driver and have a go in two, Rory the same. Most of the rest of us have to whack it twice down the fairway, and then take a short- or mid-iron over aqua to find the putting surface. With placement more important than power, the driver is holstered more often than most visitors would like here. But unless one wishes to spend much of the day among the shadowed hardwoods bracing the fairways, 3-woods and hybrids are the more prudent choice from the tee.

Thomas Wolfe once said, "You can't go home again." Truthfully, I have no desire. That area of western Massachusetts is a good place to be from, if you follow my drift. However, should fate find me back in the old 'burgh with sticks in tow, the aforementioned courses would be reason enough to stick around for a day or two.

[Author's Note: The subject matter of this feature inspired some nostalgic feelings for the home of my youth, teenage years and eventually, young adulthood. These dovetail synergistically with my feelings about the denouement of Cybergolf. This is not only my final contribution, but one of the final features to be published on the site.]

Joel Zuckerman is an award-winning travel writer based in Savannah, Ga., and Park City, Utah. He is the only two-time winner of the Book of the Year Award as bestowed by the International Network of Golf. His most recent Book of the Year winner is titled "Pro's Pros - Extraordinary Club Professionals Making Golf Great!" which took this prestigious honor in January 2014. This is the first-ever golf book to shine the spotlight on the beating heart of golf - the unsung, yet hard-working club professional. His next project, slated for release in early 2016, is titled "Golfers Giving Back," which will be an unprecedented look at some of the nation's most exceptional charity golf tournaments. Joel's course reviews, player profiles, essays and features have appeared in 110 publications, including Sports Illustrated, Golf, Continental Magazine and Delta's Sky Magazine. He has played more than 800 courses in 40-plus states and a dozen countries. For more about Joel or to order any of his books, visit www.vagabondgolfer.com.