Wannamoisett Shines During 61st Northeast Amateur

By Joe McDonald
RIGA Senior Writer

EAST PROVIDENCE – Wannamoisett Country Club did not disappoint.

It's an annual tradition for one of Donald Ross’ best designed golf courses to host the Northeast Amateur Invitational. Superintendent Mark Daniels, and his grounds crew, worked tirelessly to prepare and maintain the 125-year-old track. It was in pristine shape, and from tee to green, the golfers were impressed during the week-long event in its 61st year.

“The course is fantastic,” said amateur Garrett Rank, who shot 11-over and missed the cut after three rounds. “I love the challenge of the course. If you’re on, you can play well. It also penalizes you pretty quickly if you’re in the rough, or the wrong spot on the greens.”

Since Daniels, who has worked at Wannamoisett for 17 years, is a true perfectionist, there are always areas he wished were better, but the grounds crew was thrilled with the way the course looked, felt and played during the Northeast Amateur.

“Overall, we’re pretty comfortable with the product we produced,” Daniels said.

During the Northeast Amateur, the crew will arrive an hour earlier than normal, and then return to mow at night after play is complete for the day. Fortunately, Daniels has a big enough crew to split the workload between morning and night shifts. Thanks to volunteers, and former employees Daniels had 37 members on the crew who agreed to work the Northeast Amateur.

“It was a great week,” Daniels said. “It’s probably been one of our best Northeast tournaments because everything came together. We had great spring weather, the crew all did what they were supposed to do and everyone showed up, so it was a very easy, non-stressful week.”

Preparing a course like Wannamoisett for a major tournament isn’t too much different than the normal day-to-day operations. Considered one of the best-conditioned courses in the United States, it’s a priority for Daniels to keep it that way throughout the year. Time and again, golfers commented on the environment and conditions of Wannamoisett. It was the first time Nick Dunlap competed in the Northeast Amateur and the Alabama product walked away with the championship. He finished 12-under after shooting 68-67-63-66 – 264 en route to victory. His 20-foot birdie putt on the 72nd hole sealed the deal.

“I can’t say I’ve played too many par-69s. I love northeast golf. I love the grass, the scenery, and you’ve got to be creative out here, which fits my game and I love bent greens. I really enjoyed it,” he said of the golf course.

In his second year at the Northeast Amateur, Matthew Riedel finished T14 with rounds of 64-71-69-72 – 276. He was in the mix the entire week.

“I love it,” he said. “It’s a lot of fun. The atmosphere is amazing. The course is a really, really good golf course and a lot of fun to play. It can be difficult, it can play easy in the morning, but it’s a good test of golf.”

That’s exactly the type of feedback Daniels and his crew is striving to obtain.

“We want to make the membership proud of their course, so they can pump their chest out on a week like this,” Daniels said. “A couple kids went pretty low on a couple of days, but they’re really good, so it’s tough to defend against that. Speed, firmness, rough – everything came together and it did all week.”

Wannamoisett is known for its challenging, but sometimes treacherous rough, which can be the difference between a good, or nasty round. Daniels stopped mowing the rough six days prior to the first round on Wednesday. Normally, the rough is kept to three inches, but it grew to nearly five-plus inches during the invitational. In fact, there were some areas it reached seven inches.

After all the guests left Wannamoisett Saturday, Daniels and his crew returned the course to play more member-friendly, beginning with an outing Monday.

“If that [Northeast Am] rough was still out there for Monday, it would be a terrible day,” Daniels said. “Instead of a five-hour round, they would be looking at six hours and a lot of lost balls.”

After a near-perfect week of weather, Mother Nature did not cooperate to begin the final round on Saturday. The early groups played in a steady rain, sometimes torrential downpour. Despite the conditions, play continued and the course held up well. Fortunately for the final two groups, the rain stopped and the sun shined until Dunlap won in the early evening.

“It’s just a matter of making sure they can still play,” Daniels explained of the early-morning conditions. “The greens were dry going into it, so they’ll suck up quite a bit of water. Usually, it takes about an inch of rain for us to get really wet out there and pool some water.”

Wannamoisett spent $4 million on its recent renovation that took only nine months to complete from September 2021 through May 2022. Architect Andrew Green’s restoration project helped revitalize the original Ross design. Northeast Amateur players consider it to be in championship-style condition, which has also helped create a top-notch environment with the best field in tournament history.

As players later boarded a shuttle to the airport, the common theme was they can’t wait to return for 2024.