The only public course in a small town of the same name, Marion has low green fees but a high pedigree.
Matthew Hart
Jeremiah Daly has never lacked access to great golf, but he knows not everyone is so lucky and he believes in leveling the playing field.
His perspective owes in part to his upbringing in Marion, Mass., a small town south of Boston that is home to a pair of prominent courses that are located just miles apart but operate in different worlds.
One is Putty seta prestigious private club with a William Flynn design that has long held a place in it US Top 100 the lists. The other is Marion Golf Club, a 9-hole layout with high bloodlines in its own right. Completed in 1904, it was the first course built by George C. Thomas, years before he stamped his name on more famous works in RivieraBel-Air and Los Angeles Country Club.
Daly, who is 42, grew up playing both.
Early on, he says, “I wasn’t attuned to their origins.” By the end of high school, however, as his interest in golf course architecture deepened, he realized “how amazing it was that this little town had a Flynn and a Thomas.”
The way the Thomas design held up at sea was also impressive. From the time Daly first played it, Marion GC had been cared for on a shoestring by Bruce and Sue Carlson, a husband and wife who lived on site in a wood-frame house that doubled as a pro shop. On a property without integrated irrigation, Bruce would get up before the sun to water the greens by hand.
If the rustic upkeep gave the course a new charm, it also made it easier to take the place for granted.
“It wasn’t a destination,” Daly says. “But a lot of people in the community played it. It was the only public course in town.”
Years passed. Daly went to college and then to a career in finance, settling elsewhere in Massachusetts. But he kept his ties to Mario and his two majors. And he continued with the news.
In early 2020, it was announced that Marion had reached a breaking point. After decades of taking care of the day-to-day, the Carlsons had decided to step down from their duties and no one seemed ready to replace them. The course was held in a private trust. Under its provisions, if the land could not be maintained for public golf, it was to be turned into a park.
Daly was allergic to this idea. Partnered with Michael Kane, a friend and fellow Kittansett member who shared his soft spot for the local 9-holer, Daly took over Marion’s lease, sealing the deal the week the world shut down for Covid. Two months later, when the state allowed the golf courses to resume operations, “we started our journey,” Daly says.
The mission was twofold: “To dust off an old work of art for lovers of golf course architecture and preserve its community aspect as well.”
For better or worse, in the century-plus since Thomas designed it, the course had remained largely untouched. The first order of business was to install irrigation under all the tees and greens, followed by improvements to faded features: clearing trees to ruin fairways; the discovery of the bunkers that had taken the ground; the magnifying greens that had shrunk into small circles over the years.
Two full-time employees came on board, a supervisor named Jeff Mello and Daly’s younger brother Will, who switched careers mid-step, abandoning his cybersecurity job to become director of golf operations. The bootstrapping effort was easy to root out. Locals volunteered for basic maintenance tasks. The USGA offered its expertise with a pro-bono stop that recently turned into a three-visit consultancy on everything from water management to aeration plans — vastly improved conditions within a modest budget.
Matthew Hart
“It’s an everyman’s golf course,” says Elliott Downing, an agronomist with the USGA and the governing body’s point person on the project. “Keeping it affordable and accessible was a key goal from the beginning.”
Four years since it was on the verge of closure, the course is nowhere close to being fully restored, but it has been dusted enough for its beauty to shine through. A par-34 that stretches just under 2,700 yards, its design is great for architecture nerds, with such time-capsule features as old stone walls coming into play on eight of the nine holes. Shades of North Berwick from Buzzards Bay.
“It’s charming, cozy and super-interesting,” says Jonathan Sirois, a high school teacher and golf coach at nearby Tabor Academy who has been a Marion regular for more than a decade. “And the greens, which were always surprisingly good, are now outstanding. The whole country is punching way above its weight.”
Where it doesn’t hit hard is its price. In the wake of the improvements, green fees have increased by $7. It’s $23 for a 9-hole loop and $35 to swing twice. For $50, you can play all day. A new $350 membership allows unlimited year-round access.
Value, on the other hand, is difficult to quantify. Like many schemes with low barriers to entry, the course provides the connective tissue of the community with impromptu tours and outings. Rituals are created around him. A solstice event. A race with a club. A semi-fierce game of Wolf contested weekly between friends.
Meanwhile, the restorations are continuing. Gil Hanse, the well-known architect who first saw Marion while working in Kittansett in the mid-1990s, has committed to drawing up a long-term plan aimed at fixing all the details of Thomas.
Thanks to increased turnover and increased merchandise sales, the course, Daly says, is now close to breaking even. But turning a profit was never the goal. The intention from the beginning and in the future is that all income goes back into the course.
“If you’re into architecture, there’s a lot to love about this place,” Daly says. “But more than anything, we want it to be a course for everyone.”
Check out our new list of the best golf courses in America for $100 or less.
