The Golf Club at Turner Hill – Played Summer 2025
- Rankings: None of my four lists
- Location: 3 Manor House Lane, Ipswich, Massachusetts
- Year: 2005
- Architects: Dana Fry & Michael Hurzdan
- Course Access: Private
- Walking Rules: Carts Available
Score Card Information:
- Championship: 7,036 yards, Par 72, 74.1 Rating/135 Slope
- Blue: 6,662 yards, Par 72, 72.3 Rating/133 Slope
- Combo: 6,426 yards, Par 72, 70.8 Rating/129 Slope
- White: 6,183 yards, Par 72, 69.5 Rating/128 Slope
- Championship (Women): 5,777 yards, Par 72, 69.7 Rating/132 Slope
- Yellow: 5,576 yards, Par 72, 66.7 Rating/121 Slope (Men’s), 72.8 Rating/134 Slope (Women’s)
- Red: 5,138 yards, Par 72, 70.7 Rating/127 Slope
I’ve been going to New England for a long time but I still manage to find new places to play golf. Turner Hill fit that description for my trip this past summer. I was lucky to get to play it with a very fun host and some of his friends who made the day quite enjoyable.
When I say “golf in New England”, I’d imagine most people think about older courses from the Golden Age of golf course architecture. There is certainly a reason for that, but Turner Hill stands as just one example of a modern course with a number of positive attributes. That’s not too surprising when you learn that it was designed by the team behind Erin Hills.
While the golf course is modern, Turner Hill does have a connection to the past in the mansion on property. It was completed in 1903 for Charles Goodnough Rice and Ann Proctor Rice. The design was meant to evoke the Elizabethan and Jacobean-style English country houses they had seen on their travels. In 1982 it was added to the National Register of Historic Places.
Getting back to the golf, the land at Turner Hill is severe and features a lot of elevation change. It makes for a very difficult walk, which we did not attempt. Despite that severity, I found the course to be quite playable. It has wide fairways and big greens to give you a respite from the heaving land. Even so, you still need to hit the ball pretty well to score out there.
The camera was put away for the most part, but I did snap a few pictures to give you an feel for the layout. Below, is the tenth hole that features a view of the mansion and clubhouse. The green has a large ridge running through the middle that makes putting from the wrong tier quite tricky.
Below is the green on the finishing par three which plays over a pond to a multilevel green. In the background is the seventeenth fairway. That hole is a dogleg right that demands a good drive. If you are too short or right, the large tree seen here can block your approach to the green.
You only got a little taste of the course at Turner Hill, but hopefully that inspires you to check it out if you ever get the chance. I’m sure you’ll be glad you did.