Greener Fairways: A Guide to Sustainable Golf in Massachusetts

Editor’s Note: This is the first of five stories in our Greener Fairways series—a closer look at how public golf in Massachusetts is leading the way in sustainability.  From public town courses to private clubs, we’re highlighting the people, practices, and partnerships that are reshaping the game—from the soil up.

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‍Part 1: Where Fairways Embrace the Wild

Picture this: a red fox darts across a dew-drenched fairway as the sun rises over at Red Tail Golf Club, in Devens. A bullfrog splashes into a nearby pond. Wild turkeys scurry through the tall grass off the first tee. For early-bird golfers at this public course, scenes like these aren’t unusual—they’re part of the experience. And that experience is changing. Golf in Massachusetts isn’t just getting greener in color—it’s getting greener in philosophy.

Across the state, golf courses are flipping the script on what it means to maintain a beautiful layout. They're conserving water, planting native grasses, trimming chemicals, and bringing more wildlife back into the picture. And they’re not just making the game more eco-friendly—they’re making it more rewarding to play.

Over the past two decades, the state’s public and municipal courses have become ground zero for a quiet revolution in golf. From the Berkshires to Cape Cod, course superintendents, towns, and everyday golfers are proving that sustainability and great golf aren’t mutually exclusive. In fact, many of the best places to play in Massachusetts are also some of the most environmentally forward-thinking.

It wasn’t always this way. For years, the image of a “great” course meant wall-to-wall green, tight mowed lines, and turf that never browned—even in August. But achieving that picture-perfect look came at a cost: heavy irrigation, synthetic fertilizers, and chemicals that did more harm than good to local ecosystems. Runoff seeped into ponds. Trees were stripped from edges. Fairways drank up thousands of gallons a day. The beauty came with baggage.

That mindset is now fading.

A new model of course care is taking hold—one that prioritizes resilience, natural beauty, and long-term stewardship. It started with a few innovative courses and has grown into a statewide shift in how golf interacts with the land it’s built on. This movement is more than a maintenance philosophy—it’s a cultural reset. And it’s happening in places where you might not expect.

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Take Widow’s Walk Golf Course in Scituate. Opened in 1997, it was designed from day one to be environmentally responsible. Built on a reclaimed sand and gravel pit, it featured native grasses, wetland buffers, and minimal turf from the start. The idea? To create a golf course that played well and protected the surrounding coastal ecosystem. It was one of the first courses in the country labeled an “environmental demonstration project”—a test case to see what golf could be if you put the land first.

Today, players still walk Widow’s Walk with clubs in hand and seabirds overhead. The fescue-lined fairways don’t just look wild—they are wild, alive with insects, birds, and resilient native plants. The rough isn’t something to be mowed down; it’s part of the ecosystem. And yet, the course plays just as well—maybe better—than many more intensively managed tracks.

Travel west to Devens and you’ll find Red Tail Golf Club, mentioned earlier, named for the red-tailed hawks that glide above its wetlands and tree lines. The course winds through a former military base, and rather than wiping the land clean, its designers worked with what was already there: forests, marshes, and open meadows. The result is a stunning, playable course that feels like it grew from the ground up.

Red Tail was the first New England course to receive Audubon’s elite Signature Sanctuary certification—a level that requires long-term planning, wildlife studies, and sustainability embedded from the beginning. Here, native species thrive beside strategic bunkers. Out-of-play areas are purposefully unmowed, allowing wildflowers and grasses to spread. Fairways are lean, fast, and firm—both by design and necessity. Every natural buffer or restored wetland not only protects the landscape, but helps with flood control and erosion resistance. It’s beautiful, yes, but also durable.

Even in denser, suburban areas, change is happening. Robert T. Lynch Municipal Golf Course in Brookline—also known as Putterham—won a recent environmental excellence award for introducing solar-powered robotic mowers. They trim fairways quietly at night, cutting fuel and emissions while keeping the turf smooth. The course has also improved drainage infrastructure and is developing a new irrigation pond designed to capture and reuse rainwater—reducing its reliance on municipal water supplies. “We have this really cool ecosystem—how can we improve it, and at the same time, how can we make it better for our golfers?” said General Manager Justin Lawson in a 2024 interview with NESN. “Being a public golf course, we share that responsibility to the environment and our residents to find that balance.”

At Falmouth Country Club, the Cape’s only Audubon-certified public course, bluebird boxes line the fairways and ospreys return every spring to a platform near the 10th hole. Swallows dive for insects, and wetlands are left to do what they do best—filter water, support life, and offer a little wildness in between the swings.

Everywhere you look in Massachusetts, public courses are getting creative. They’re tightening water schedules. They’re planting flowers for bees. They’re replacing thirsty turf with blends that tolerate heat and dryness. Some are even hosting student researchers from nearby universities to measure soil health or wildlife activity.

It’s not about perfection anymore—it’s about balance. Let the grass brown a little in the heat. Let the rough stay a little taller. Let nature show up around the next dogleg.

And the golfers? They’re on board. Many are walking more and riding less. They’re using bamboo tees, filling reusable bottles, and cheering on pollinator patches by the 15th tee. They're proud to play courses that reflect their values—places where the game is still great, but the footprint is lighter.

This movement is only growing stronger. In the coming parts of this series, we’ll look at:

• The public courses doing the heavy lifting with the fewest resources
• A private island club pushing organic turf care to its limits
• The university researchers helping it all make sense
• And the players who are stepping up as stewards of the game

Because here in Massachusetts, golf isn’t just about the next round—it’s about the next generation.

Next Up: Part 2 – Grassroots Green
We’ll dive deeper into the courses leading the way on a town budget: Widow’s Walk, Olde Scotland Links, Red Tail, Miacomet, and more.