'We’re looking to start a tradition here': Tatnuck CC set to host first Worcester County Women's Amateur

The Worcester County Amateur has been a popular men’s golf tournament since 1986.

This summer, the Worcester County Women’s Amateur hopes to start its own long history.

Members of Tatnuck Country Club saw how successful the Worcester County Amateur has been at Wachusett CC in West Boylston and Kettle Brook Golf Club in Paxton and decided to launch the Worcester County Women’s Amateur on the same weekend this year.

The women’s tournament is scheduled to be contested at Tatnuck on Friday, June 30, and Saturday, July 1. The Worcester County Amateur will be held at Kettle Brook on Saturday, July 1, and at Wachusett on Sunday, July 2.

Bob Spellane, chair of Tatnuck’s golf committee and a member of the club’s board of governors, said the club decided to hold the single-division event to recognize the club’s 125th anniversary and to promote women’s golf. The goal is to have up to 40 women play 18 holes of stroke play each day to determine the champion. Tatnuck is nine holes so the women will play it twice each day.

The players must have handicaps of 12.0 or lower.

“We’re looking to start a tradition here in Central Massachusetts,” Spellane said, “to crown the best player and to attract amateurs from all over the state to play in this tournament.”

The entry fee of $125 includes the two competitive rounds, a practice round and lunch on Friday, a tee gift and prizes. To enter, visit tatnuckcc.com or search for Worcester County Women’s Amateur on Instagram.

Club is excited about event

“I think it’s fabulous that Tatnuck is hosting it,” Tatnuck CC president and chairman of the board Mike Robbins said. “I think women’s golf is very important. There are a whole lot of women playing golf today and a lot of them have a competitive spirit and I think it’s a great privilege and honor to host that group.”

The club has already reached out to women golfers by serving as the practice course for the Assumption University women’s golf team.

Tatnuck was home to Worcester native Deborah Verry, one of the most accomplished women’s golfers from this region. At age 21, she captured the Worcester County Women’s Golf Association championship in 1932 at Tatnuck. She went on to win the prestigious North & South Amateur at Pinehurst, N.C., in 1936 and the Massachusetts Women’s Amateur in 1937 and 1940. She also competed in the U.S. Women’s Amateur and in 1942-43 became one of only two presidents of the Women’s Golf Association of Massachusetts from Central Mass. The other was Hatheway White of Westborough CC in 1988-89.

Verry put her golf game aside to enter the Navy during World War II and then joined the Central Intelligence Agency in 1948, rising to the position of chief administrative officer for the Center for the Study of Intelligence. She remained in the CIA until her death in 1965 at age 54.

Mary Gale of Bedrock GC in Rutland plans to play in the Worcester County Women’s Amateur, and even though she turned 72 in January, she should be in the hunt after keeping her game sharp playing in Lake Worth, Florida, over the winter.

“My game is not as consistent as in the past,” Gale said, “so I would not say I am a strong contender, but I am still in the competitive mode so I plan to get a lot of practice in before the event to prepare.”

Despite her inconsistency, can she win the title at Tatnuck?

“You never know,” she said. “I’d like to.”

Gale played Tatnuck quite a few times while her husband, Jack, was head pro from 1982-2002. She knows the course well and has shot as low as 72 there.

Gale’s long impressive golf résumé includes victories in the Endicott Cup 40 years apart, the first coming in 1973 and the last in 2013. She also won the Endicott Cup in 1994. Her other victories include at the 1996 Massachusetts Women’s Amateur, the 1976 and 1978 New Hampshire Women’s Amateur, the 1974 and 1987 Baker Trophy, the 1986 Women’s Mid-Amateur for the Keyes Cup, and the 2010 and 2012 Mass. Women’s Senior Amateur. She has also played in the 1984 U.S. Women’s Open at Salem CC and in the inaugural U.S. Women’s Amateur Four-Ball with Christine Gagner in 2015 at Bandon Dunes in Oregon.

Spellane was a Ouimet scholar caddie at Tatnuck when Gale played there.

“In my view, she’s the face of Central Mass. golf,” Spellane said.

Jack and Mary Gale played Tatnuck last summer for the first time in quite a while, and she is looking forward to playing in this new event at the club.

“I think it’s great,” she said. “There’s a fair amount of women who will be interested. You’re going to get a lot of good players from around here.”

Gale expects Gagner and Kris Henderson, both of Bedrock, and Joanne Catlin of Oak Hill CC in Fitchburg to play.

Spellane said his wife Brianne and daughter Annie, who helped Notre Dame Academy win state golf championships in 2015 and 2016, plan to play.

Course ready for County Women's Amateur

Tatnuck pro P.J. Breton said the decision hasn’t been finalized, but he expects the tournament to use the white and blue tees for a total of 6,166 yards and play to a par of 70.

“We’re excited to give our top ladies an opportunity to showcase their skills,” Breton said. “Without a doubt, it will be a great promotion for the club. Before I got here, it didn’t feel as though Tatnuck was really on the map. People knew of the club, but they didn’t really know the club, and all the work we’ve done over the last year and a half will give people a different sense of what Tatnuck is all about, and I want it to be a championship style golf course.”

Tatnuck hired Donald Ross expert Bradley Klein and architect Matt Dusenberry to restore the course to what Ross envisioned when he designed it. Trees were removed, especially behind the ninth green and aside the third fairway. So from the clubhouse, you can now see the first, second, third, seventh and ninth greens.

Also, bunkers were renovated, removed and added, and chocolate drops — Ross mounds — were built. Eventually, tees will be added and lengthened. The clubhouse also underwent extensive renovations in 2021.

The improvements helped boost membership from 175 to 275 over the past two years, Robbins said.

“All these people wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t done right,” Robbins said.

Although Tatnuck is Worcester’s oldest golf course and one of the oldest in the state, it’s still not well known by nonmembers despite the fact that it’s located on busy Pleasant Street between Tatnuck Square and the Worcester Airport Rotary.

“Most of the time I have guests up there,” Spellane said, “they’re shocked that there’s a course like this in the middle of Worcester. Most say they didn’t even know it existed. We hear comments like, ‘I’ve driven by this hundreds of times and never knew there was a golf course here.’ ”

Tatnuck presents far more challenges than most nine-hole courses.

“Nine-hole courses in general get a bad rap,” Spellane said, “that you're playing the same course twice, but with the variety of tees Tatnuck has and how that impacts landing areas on the front and back nine, you are getting different looks each time around.”

Breton said as with all Ross designs, one of the keys to playing Tatnuck well is staying below the hole on the greens, especially with wind being more in play now that several trees have been removed in recent years.

Jack Gale said driving the ball straight is important at Tatnuck, and Mary Gale said course familiarity is crucial.

The Worcester County Women’s Golf Association holds events each week from May through September, including a championship tournament in different flights. But Tatnuck’s tournament will be a single event geared toward women with lower handicaps.

—Contact Bill Doyle at bcdoyle15@charter.net. Follow him on Twitter@BillDoyle15.

This article originally appeared on Telegram & Gazette: Golf: Tatnuck CC is set to host first Worcester County Women's Amateur