Kernwood

Kernwood Country Club celebrated its centenary in 2014 and its Donald Ross-designed course lies alongside the scenic Danvers River, where many state, regional and national qualifying championship events have played out down the years.

The first major tournament at Kernwood took place in 1922, when the Massachusetts Golf Association staged its 14th state amateur championship. Victory for Francis Ouimet was his fifth in nine years.

The MGA returned to Kernwood for their Amateur Championship in 1932, and most recently in 2014, the year of the club’s Centennial. The course also hosted the 2007 Massachusetts Open, and the layout has been used in recent years for several NEPGA competitions.

Notable holes include the uphill par three 4th, played to a severely back to front sloping green, and the 340-yard 8th, which doglegs left and slightly uphill to a false fronted green. On the back nine, the signature par three 12th calls for the tee shot to carry across a winding creek to a heavily sand-protected green.

Robert McNeil of Northeast Golf Company completed a bunker restoration on the course at the end of 2020, using original drawings for eleven holes and aerial photographs from the 1950s to guide the project.

Forty-four new bunkers were constructed, a few were removed, and some were reshaped into grassy catchment areas. Prior to that work, around a thousand trees had been removed to expose lost lines of play and fairway contours.