Boston’s best golf courses missing from 2024 Olympics bid

Boston, the U.S. city selected Thursday as the one that could stage the 2024 Olympic games, boasts a number of top golf courses. The problem is that, at this early stage of the process, none of them appears to be in the running to host potential Olympians Lydia Ko, Cheyenne Woods, or Rickie Fowler.

The Country Club in neighboring Brookline welcomed the 1999 Ryder Cup and would be an excellent venue for the ’24 games. Norton’s TPC Boston, site of the PGA Tour’s annual Deutsch Bank Championship, is some 35 miles from downtown, but would also make sense, especially since it so readily accommodates the thousands of fans who flow through the gates every Labor Day weekend.

With billions in private funds promised to construct and improve Boston’s infrastructure, athletic venue specifics are scant, dissent to hosting the Olympics is vocal, and the only course mentioned as a possible site for the games has been Franklin Park, which boosters concede would require a massive overhaul to become Olympics-ready.

Boston mayor Marty Walsh “said potential Olympic venues like Boston Common and the golf course at Franklin Park would also see an upgrade if Boston hosted the games,” according to the Boston Globe.

“‘Those all get restored to better than they were when we went in there,’” Walsh said. ‘There’s really an opportunity here.’”

With that in mind, here is a snapshot of some of the courses within the Boston metropolitan area that may or may not be under consideration in 2024:

William J. Devine Golf Course at Franklin Park

Established in 1896 and operated by the City of Boston, the Donald Ross-redesigned Franklin Park (as the locals call it) in Dorchester is the second oldest public course in the country. Bobby Jones played here and Tiger Woods gave a clinic to neighborhood kids. Unlike so many chi-chi courses in Boston and elsewhere, the 5,961-yard par-70 course boasts a truly diverse membership as far as race, gender and age are concerned.

George Wright Golf Course

The city-run Hyde Park track opened in 1938. Selected as one of the state’s Best Municipal Courses by Golf Digest, the par-70, 6,440-yard George Wright was Golfweek’s Best Municipal Course in the U.S. 2009. Originally intended to be a private club designed by Donald Ross, the stock market crash in 1929 halted the project. Instead, a Ross employee, Walter Irving Johnson, finished the work with funding from President Roosevelt’s Works Progress Administration.

The Country Club

Established in 1882 as an equestrian and social club, the tony TCC introduced golf to its members in 1893. A founding club of the USGA, the Rees Jones-designed/Gil Hanse-redesigned TCC is ranked 19th among Golf Digest’s 100 Greatest Golf Courses and No. 1 in the state. In addition to the ’99 Ryder Cup, where Justin Leonard drilled that 45-foot putt on the 17th hole to clinch the matches for the U.S. (after Jose Maria Olazabel missed his putt to halve the hole), the 7,350-yard, par-70 venue has hosted six U.S. Amateurs and three U.S. Opens.

TPC Boston

Arnold Palmer was the original designer of the course, which Boston course architect Hanse (who is designing the course for next year’s Olympics in Rio), with PGA Tour pro Brad Faxon as a consultant, redesigned it in 2007. Golf Digest proclaimed the par-72, 7,241-yard layout the “Best Private Remodel” of that year and ranked it 11th among best courses to play in the state for 2013-2014. The remodeled 18th green complex was unveiled in 2012 with a smaller, elevated green guarded by a punishing pot bunker.

Boston Golf Club

No. 75 among Golf Digest’s Greatest Golf Courses, this uber-exclusive Hanse-designed course in Hingham is situated along the south coast. The par-71, 7,062-yard venue boasts natural beauty and a stunning coastal landscape. The club may be only 18 miles south of Boston, but good luck with weekend traffic to Cape Cod.