Eastward Ho! Country Club

The verdict

Eastward Ho is the most exhilarating piece of golfing ground in New England, a course whose drama comes entirely from the land and the wind rather than from anything an architect imposed. The English designer Herbert Fowler, who shaped Walton Heath and reworked the Royal North Devon links known as Westward Ho, found heaving, tumbling terrain above Pleasant Bay in Chatham and routed eighteen holes over it in 1922, leaving the wild contours to do the work. Fairways pitch and roll, stances are rarely level, and the greens sit on knobs and in hollows with the bay glinting beyond. The club, first the Chatham Country Club, renamed itself in tribute to Fowler's links across the Atlantic.

For the travelling golfer, Eastward Ho matters because it delivers a genuinely links like experience that is almost impossible to find elsewhere in America. It is not long, and on a calm morning the card looks gentle, but calm mornings are rare on this exposed corner of the Cape. When the wind gets up, as it almost always does, the course becomes a test of flight, nerve and imagination that the best players speak of with real affection. Access is private, through a member, so a round takes planning, but as the headline of a Cape Cod golf trip it is unforgettable. This is the rare American course that feels like it was blown in from Scotland.

The holes worth the trip

What sets Eastward Ho apart is that nearly every hole offers a view of the water and almost none offers a flat lie. The land does the defending: fairways roll across the natural grade so the ball seldom finishes where you expect, and the player who cannot accept a sidehill stance and an awkward angle will struggle long before the greens. The closing stretch along the high ground above Pleasant Bay is the most photographed, a run of holes exposed fully to the wind with the bay and the Atlantic spread out beyond, where a half club misjudged is the difference between the putting surface and a steep fall into trouble.

The par 3s are a highlight, played across folds in the ground to greens that perch and tilt, and they change character completely from one day to the next as the wind swings around the compass. The par 4s reward the low, driven shot that runs with the contour rather than the high ball the breeze can seize, and the green complexes, set into the natural humps and swales, gather a good shot and reject a careless one. There is little water and no need for it; the topography and the sea air supply all the difficulty the course requires.

At around 6,700 yards Eastward Ho is short on paper, and that number deceives almost everyone who has not played it in a blow. The wind is the hazard, the firmness is the test, and the tumbling ground makes every shot a decision about flight and bounce. Learn to play it low, accept the lies and read the breeze, and it becomes one of the most purely enjoyable rounds in American golf.

Where to stay nearby

Eastward Ho sits in Chatham, one of the prettiest towns on Cape Cod, so the natural base is Chatham itself, with its classic inns and the grand seaside hotel on the bluff, or one of the resort towns spread along the Cape. Boston is roughly an hour and a half away for those arriving by air and wanting a city night at either end of the trip.

Most visiting golfers fold Eastward Ho into a broader New England trip, given its private access. Pair a Cape Cod stay with the bookable and classic courses of the wider region: the Coore and Crenshaw sand course at Old Sandwich Golf Club on the way down from Boston, the Gil Hanse modern classic of Boston Golf Club on the South Shore, and the historic Newport Country Club across the water in Rhode Island make a memorable itinerary.

Looking for a base? See our recommended hotels and resorts in Chatham and on Cape Cod.