Black Rock Country Club

Developers George McGoldrick and Jim Read were so impressed with what architect Brian Silva had accomplished with his designs at Waverly Oaks and Cape Cod National that they had no hesitation in inviting him to lay out the course at Black Rock Country Club within a challenging 450-acre property that was centred round a gravel quarry.

During a difficult construction period that took a couple of years to complete, huge rocks and boulders were moved around the estate, old dump sites were capped and, in the words of Brian Silva, “many ten-wheel tractor trailer loads from the “Big Dig” were used to cover and shape the blasted ledge”.

An eight-inch layer of crushed stone was spread over the top of the marine clay then 250,000 cubic yards of imported topsoil from other building sites was trucked in to cap fairways that were routed over, around and between the remaining rocky outcrops.

Holes of particular note include the bunkerless 3rd (where the absence of sand around a narrow shelf green is a delight), the par three 9th (with Redan-like green characteristics on a surface that slopes from high front right to lower back left) and the 225-yard 12th, which is played from an elevated tee to a green that’s bunkered all the way along its right flank.