| Course Details - Sandy Burr
Sandy Burr Country Club was established in 1922 and designed by the renowned golf course architect Donald Ross. This Middlesex County bent grass course lies on land that is rolling and inviting to play, with aged trees along the fairways and good sized greens. Giving the course an almost English countryside feel is the large and well-constructed Tudor clubhouse, which can seat 250 guests.
The great early American golfer, Francis Ouimet, Walter Hagen and Gene Sarazen were frequent players here. The 1935 Massachusetts Open was played at Sandy Burr. As the aerial photograph attests, the well-maintained, wide open fairways are lined with mature trees.
The modern courses rarely ascribe special names to the holes, but many of the older courses manage to entertain the golfer with quaint names. The holes at New Sandy Burr were known as: Down and Out, River Bound, Air Line, The Saucer, Spoon Carry, Trap Hill, Triangle, Old Elbow, Round Top, The Scoop, Rocking Chair, Sudbury Shore, Trouble Inlet, Lone Tree, Apple Hollow, The Narrows, String Bean and Hillside—almost descriptive enough to replace photos.
The course was host to the New England Professional Golfers' Association championship, in July of 1924, when an international return match between Archie Compston (called "Britain's leading professional" at the time) and Walter C. Hagen ("The British Open Champion and American Professional Champion") received widespread publicity. The second 36 holes of the Compston-Hagen match was held at the Westchester-Biltmore course in Rye, New York. Bob Dunbar, in his newspaper column at the time, called the match the "Battle of the Century."
Several years before, Johnny Farrell played Lagerblade and Stait in a match entitled, "New England vs. the World." It was for 36 holes, and New England won. Then, two years later, Hagen and Ouimet were brought together in a memorable encounter in which they played 18 holes on each of two consecutive afternoons with Ouimet winning handily seven and five.
In 1922, Sandy Burr originated the New England Left Hand Championship, after the course had been designated by the Massachusetts Golf Association as one of the few courses in the state "best suited for championship events."
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