Address The Ball

Hello friends, welcome to another Address the Ball blog post! Today, we are going to dive into my favorite 9-hole courses in the Greater Boston area.  For this list, I'll focus on my top-5 public courses that everyone can access. Let's start it up! 1. Patriot Golf Course (Bedford, MA) Located on the grounds of the VA Medical Center in Bedford (and adjacent to Middlesex Community College), this course is underrated in my opinion. It has a military course feel: straightforward, affordable, low-frills, and very walkable. Despite the 9-hole layout, it’s more demanding than the yardage suggests. (2,600-2,900 yards) While this course may be short on paper, the greens are small and fairly protected with holes that will require some target golf instead of a bomb-and-gouge approach. If you queue up a round at Patriot, get ready for a solid test of your irons and wedges. The pace of play here is faster than a lot of other courses, but you can still have an outlier round that can take ove...

Morning at Unicorn Golf Course This week I was fortunate enough to have a day off so I set out to play a quick 9-holes before doing anything else. I scanned local tee times and decided on the short course just north of Boston. I have played this course numerous times and wanted an easy drive and a layout that I was familiar with; enter Unicorn Golf Course.  The Unicorn Golf Course, established in 1928 by the Boston Athletic Association, was a prestigious 18-hole private golf course. It was designed by the renowned architectural firm of Stiles and Van Kleek, spanning parts of Stoneham and Woburn. In 1972, the town of Stoneham acquired the Stoneham section and transformed it into a premier nine-hole course called Unicorn. Nestled atop a picturesque hill, the course offers a diverse experience with some open holes and others framed by magnificent, sprawling oak trees along its beautiful fairways. From the blue tees, the course measures 3,234 yards and has a par of 35, with a slope rat...