Bay State Golf
Posts
Cape Cod CC is on the Ropes

Cape Cod CC is on the Ropes

+ News, Notes, and weekly favorites

Sean Melia
September 26, 2025

Hey Everyone,

I am down in Rhode Island this weekend for the wedding of a friend who started as an Internet golf friend and then turned into a real-life friend.

What a world.

Over the last week, I’ve heard from a few people who asked me to shine a light on Cape Cod CC. This month, a few big steps were taken to turn the 97-year-old Golden Age course into a solar farm.

Ironically, Kevin, whose wedding I am attending, is the person who introduced me to Cape Cod CC. I’ve played the course with him, and it’s a shame that Friel Golf Management is turning a work of art into solar field.

More on that in the meat of the newsletter.

News and Notes

Pro Golf

🇨🇦 Chris Francoeur shot 67 (-3) in the Fortinet Cup. He’s T12. Live Scoring

🌽 Connecticut native John VanDerLaan won the Nationwide Children’s Hospital Championship last week. There are two events left on this season’s schedule.

Here’s how the Massachusetts players did last week. 👇️

College Golf

📈 I have compiled schedules and results for every Division 1 men’s and women’s college team in Massachusetts, along with individual results for players who play outside of Massachusetts. You can find that here.

I have made this information free, but if you would like to support coverage and attention to the college game and local players, you could consider upgrading to a paid membership or dropping a tip in the tip jar. I am on a path to making this a sustainable operation, and I’d love to keep BSG a mainly reader-supported entity. Any type of support is welcome and goes a long way.

🦅 The Boston College women won the Red Bandanna Invitational this week. Boston University was the other Massachusetts team in the field. They finished in 8th. Sophia Li of Dartmouth won the individual title. Results

🐴 A bunch of local teams will tee it up in the UConn Invitational at GreatHorse from 9/28 to 9/30. Live scoring.

The lineup 👇️

Amateur Golf

🌲 The Crump Cup is probably the most coveted invite in mid-amateur golf (or all of amateur…). It’s a four-day event at Pine Valley in New Jersey. The players stay on the property and play 36 holes to qualify for match play. The top 16 players are in the Championship Flight. It’s match play on Saturday and Sunday. A golfing buffet at one of the best courses in the world. Players that lose on Saturday also play a fun alternate shot event on Sunday morning.

Matthew Naumec, Matt Parziale, and Nick Maccario are playing this week.

Here are the results from round 1 on Thursday. 👇️

🏌️‍♂️ The Mass. Senior Amateur kicks off on Monday, Sept. 39. The two-day event will have an 18-hole cut. The top 70 and ties will play the second round. Doug Clapp is the defending champion. Other former champions in the field include: Don Foberg, Frank Vana, Joe Walker, Don Reycroft, Jack Kearney, Keith Smith, and Scott Copeland. Tee times and live scoring.

Plugs

I interviewed Dan Boisvert in his coaching space, Pin High Golf. He’s a great follow on Instagram.

A couple of weeks ago, I was part of a Chronicle episode that focused on golf around Massachusetts. You can watch my little segment here.

Cape Cod Country Club is on the Ropes

In November 2020, I stood on the putting green at Southers Marsh and watched a guy I only knew from the Internet make a plea to a bunch of golfers. His beloved Cape Cod Country Club was on the brink.

The next season, I joined Kevin for a round at Cape Cod CC along with a handful of others who were moved by his speech in November.

The fear of a Cape Cod CC sale and conversion to a solar field turned very real in the winter of 2021. I remember tuning into a town hall meeting to see how the vote for approval was going to pan out.

Since then, the rumors have swirled, and the project has sputtered out and then returned to life.

Last week, the fear became even more of a reality when The Cape Cod Commission voted 14-1 to turn the Cape Cod Country Club into a solar farm.

An article on CapeCod.com read, “The proposed project area covers approximately 137 acres spread over five parcels of land currently operating as the country club which is bordered by Coonamessett Pond to the west and town-owned conservation land to the north, south, and east.”

So why is Cape Cod CC slipping through the fingers of those that love it? The club’s owner, Friel Golf Management, is ready to unload another of their golf properties and seem unworried about the future of the course.

The heart-wrenching thing about Falmouth potentially losing such a fabulous golf course is that it doesn’t match the spirit of Friel Golf Management’s origin story. Phil Friel, the founder of the company, had a wonderful career in golf. His was the classic story of caddie to club pro. In the 1960s, as pro at Nashua CC, he decided to build his own public golf course in Hudson, NH. He called it Green Meadows (more on that in a moment). Over the decades, Friel Golf Management snapped up courses in the region that were losing money in order to revive them; at one point they ran 15 different clubs. The business has stayed in the family during the 60 years of its existence. They stood on the principles that public golf was important, in a GolfBusiness.com article from April 2020 titled “Continuing a Legacy,” Steve Eubanks wrote:

So, it’s a marvel of the golf course ownership business that the children of Phil J. Friel Jr. not only continued in their father’s footsteps, but that two decades after the patriarch’s passing, Phil’s grandchildren are servicing the golf population of New England with the same zeal that marked their grandfather’s time in the game.

Steve Eubanks

In 2023, Green Meadow was sold, and it’s now a Target distribution center.

It shouldn’t surprise anyone that a group willing to sell off a course that their grandfather built would unload a course without any ties to the family.

I wouldn’t pretend to understand the business of running and maintaining a golf course. I imagine the margins are slim; a wet summer or horrible winter can eat away at any revenue. Owning a golf course is hard.

But the Friel’s are showing that replacing golf courses is rather easy, even ones that your family built from scratch. That’s why I still come back to the same question over and over again: Why can’t Friel Golf Management, one that apparently serves the “golf population of New England with zeal,” seek out an avenue to keep these golf courses intact?

In an open letter, East Falmouth resident Carey Murphy wrote:

I would respectfully ask that the Friel family pause this project for six months, put it publicly on the open market, with a fair market price, and see where it goes. If it doesn’t draw any interest and a buyer for it then have at it, take the money and run. Would housing be a better option as stated by many housing advocates? It sure beats the alternative proposed.

CapeCod.com

The course has deep roots within the community and a rich history in the wider world of golf.

It was built nearly 100 years ago by a well-known architect during the Golden Age of golf course design. Devereax Emmet was a peer of Seth Raynor’s. The designs these men created helped the game grow. Now in 2025, the game is incredibly popular, but courses continue to close for various reasons.

It’s a shame that a name like Friel, after 60 years of being a steward for public golf, is preparing to send Cape Cod CC to the gallows.

If you would like to support my work, you can upgrade your subscription.