Renaissance

Would it be an exaggeration to suggest Brian Silva’s career has been a renaissance for golf course architecture? Perhaps...but there’s little denying that Silva has made his mark both restoring and creating new courses around the United States. It just so happens that his first original design was Renaissance Golf Club in Haverhill, Massachusetts.

Despite the name, Silva has made a name for himself at least in part by adapting the features of the template layers, such as C.B. Macdonald and Seth Raynor. This course is not solely a tribute to those classic holes, but Silva sprinkles a few examples around the property, including a Narrows, Cape, and Sahara hole. There are other existing concepts that he utterly reinvents, however.

The Punchbowl hole is considered a drivable par four, despite playing 370 yards! The question is whether you trust your putter enough to score once the ball has been gathered into this beckoning green, or if you prefer to take a wedge in. The Long template is traditionally the lengthiest par five at Macdonald’s courses...but at Renaissance it is a par three. But what a par three...at 250 yards, it lives up to the name.