Pittsfield, United States
Founded in 1924 and opened for play in 1928, Berkshire Hills Country Club holds a singular distinction in New England: it is the only original A.W. Tillinghast design in Massachusetts. Set on 180 acres of rolling upland terrain in Pittsfield's Berkshire Hills, the par-72 layout features Tillinghast's trademark large, contoured greens, strategic bunkering, and a routing that makes inventive use of the site's natural valleys and wooded ridgelines. A private club with a loyal membership and a growing reputation among serious golfers — Golf Magazine called it "the best course you've never heard of."
Berkshire Hills Country Club
Founded in 1924 and opened for play in 1928, Berkshire Hills Country Club holds a singular distinction in New England: it is the only original A.W. Tillinghast design in Massachusetts. Set on 180 acres of rolling upland terrain in Pittsfield's Berkshire Hills, the par-72 layout features Tillinghast's trademark large, contoured greens, strategic bunkering, and a routing that makes inventive use of the site's natural valleys and wooded ridgelines. A private club with a loyal membership and a growing reputation among serious golfers — Golf Magazine called it "the best course you've never heard of."
Berkshire Hills Country Club is an 18-hole private golf club located in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, situated on 180 acres in Berkshire County. The course was designed by A.W. Tillinghast, one of the most celebrated American golf architects of the early twentieth century, making it the only original Tillinghast design in the state of Massachusetts. Land for the club was purchased in December 1924, and Tillinghast completed the full 18-hole layout by 1928. The course is set against a hilly inland terrain with panoramic views of the surrounding mountains, characteristic of the Berkshires region of western Massachusetts.
Tillinghast's design at Berkshire Hills features an unconventional distribution of par values, with five par 5s (six for women), five par 3s, and eight par 4s across the 18 holes. The layout incorporates doglegs, strategically placed bunkers, and undulating greens that slope from back to front, consistent with Tillinghast's broader design philosophy emphasizing variety and strategic shot-making over raw length. Six sets of tees accommodate golfers of varying skill levels.
The club was founded in 1925 with 306 founding members, supported in part by the General Electric Company. In recent years the club undertook a beautification program aligned with Tillinghast design themes. A notable moment in the club's history came in 1964 when Arnold Palmer and Gene Littler contested an exhibition match on the course. The current clubhouse, completed in 2003, replaced an earlier structure that burned down in 1941.
The latest ranking of the Top 100 Golf Courses in the World serves as the ultimate global golf bucket list. Most members of our World Top 100 Panel are seasoned golfers, each playing 20-30 of these courses annually while travelling extensively over decades to form their opinions on others. We recognise that opinions vary—even among our panel members. Rankings are subjective, and there are undoubtedly 50 or more courses in the UK and USA alone that could easily fit onto this list. Links Golf Pilgrimages The rankings
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