With a history of design by Donald Ross, Wayne Stiles and Geoffrey Cornish, the club is fortunate to have one of only two courses that has felt the touch of this trio of New England’s most prolific and distinguished golf course architects. More recent modifications, by Mark Mungean, upgraded the layout for the 2010 Massachusetts Open—held as part of the club’s centennial celebration. The ultimate compliment to the work of all these men—and the care put forth by the membership and the superintendent and his staff—has been the desire of the Massachusetts Golf association and the United States Golf association to conduct championships here. The club has hosted over a dozen championships sponsored by these two organizations.

While high-level competitive golf is one of Wellesley’s hallmarks, most member golf is more casual. The club offers golf programs for women, men, juniors and seniors as well as events for mixed golf among these groups. There are over a dozen opportunities a year for members to entertain guests in organized play, in addition to informal guest play. To ensure everyone gets a chance to play, the club has an online tee time reservation system.

The club’s earliest famous golf visitor was Francis Ouimet, who played here on September 15-16, 1913, shooting a pair of undistinguished 88s. Five days later, he completed his epic victory in the US Open at The Country Club. With characteristic self-deprecation, Ouimet later claimed that Wellesley played a key role in his win: “I probably got all the bad golf out of my system—and believe me, there must have been plenty of it there.”

The course plays to a par of 71 and its 5 sets of tees provide yardages—ranging from 5,473 to 6,903 yards—for all abilities. In addition to the golf course, the club has a 15,000 square foot practice tee, 2 putting greens, a short game practice area and an indoor practice facility.

While the members are understandably proud of their course, it also gets high praise from outsiders. Frank Dully, the head professional at Kernwood Country Club and a former NEPGA champion is among them. “Wellesley is a great championship course, one of the very best we have in New England..…among the top five,” said Dully after playing the 2010 Mass Open. “It was a fine test for the last Mass Open here (1999), but since then it’s gotten better in every respect—condition, bunkering, playability, wonderful visual targets for approach shots, fair and true greens, and beautiful backdrops.”