The Fox Rocks – an interesting name, an excellent golf course

Ever since I moved to Western Mass in 2005, I’ve wanted to play the Crumpin Fox Club in Bernardston, MA. I first heard about it in 1997 when I spent the summer in the area and my brother suggested I check out a course called the “Grumpy Fox” for a proposed golf outing. We didn’t end up playing it then, but on November 6th this year, I finally got my shot, and it was worth the wait.

Tucked away in the forest along the northern border of Massachusetts, the Crumpin Fox Club is only a couple miles off Interstate 91 making it both easy to get to and remote. Not far from the Vermont border, Crumpin Fox is named for the former Bernardston-based, Crump & Fox soda company.

I played it about a month past the optimal time. I can only imagine the beauty of this course cloaked in the peak of fall colors. As it was, the few rust colored oak leaves that clung to the branches were still a suitable wrapping for this rugged and remote terrain.

As you venture off Route 10, and wind through the trees, you arrive at a clubhouse which resembles a rustic mountain lodge. It sets behind the tees for the two nines, which are back to back firing east and west. The amiable pro Michael Zaranek introduced himself and told me I’d have the course to myself on this cool November morning.

Despite it being late fall, the course was in wonderful shape. The fairways had been punched, but I could have played them down. The rust was setting in on my game so I gave myself preferred lies in the fairway. The greens were fast and true, the kind where you could feel like a good putter if you were rolling them nicely, or a bad one if you lost your touch.

While some courses provide for a gentle start, the Fox doesn’t. The first is a hard dogleg right and even if you manage to hit the fairway with a big drive, (which I did), you can still make a big number (which I also did). I can’t blame the sculpted green complex for the duff and the shank that followed my big drive, but there’s trouble to be found even without a meltdown.

As I navigated the first, I collected my impressions of the course. It has a mature feel and though most of the course is tree-lined, it doesn’t feel claustrophobic. Though the two nines were built separately, after several holes it struck me that the design achieves that difficult balance of each hole being unique but the collection has a consistent look. The green complexes are uniformly challenging, bordering on severe. The greens are modest-sized, and many are raised and surrounded by fall offs, collections of deep snarling bunkers or in several cases both of those plus water. As a result the slope for the gold tees at just over 6,000 yards is appropriately pegged at 133.

After the first, the next several holes feature changes in elevation. Holes two and four are shortish dogleg par fours which use the elevation to their advantage, making them tougher than their yardages would suggest. Holes two and four bracket the third hole, a sporty par-3 that plays sharply downhill.

Each nine starts with holes cut through the trees but each has a point where it opens up. The front nine opens up on number five on its way to the signature par-5 eighth. At first glance, the eighth seems quite different with a lake along its entire length, but it doesn’t feel out of place as you stand back in the trees on the tee and see the grandstand of evergreens bordering the right side.

And certainly water is not out of place as streams wander through both nines. The back nine, which is the older side, features its own lake, ringed with holes fourteen through sixteen. Other notable holes on the back nine include the par 3 eleventh, which requires a carry across a shaggy ravine and twelve, a tight par-4 which twists past a rocky outcrop guarding the fairway’s right side.

Many of the holes on the back nine require a carry over water, making for difficult approach shots. That is certainly the case on number eighteen, where the green wraps around a marshy pond which guards the front left. It’s a fittingly strong finishing hole, and one regret was that it wasn’t a warm summer day so I could have sat on the deck and watched other players finish their rounds.

It’s a course where I found it tough to pick my favorite holes – a stronger compliment might be that there aren’t any weak ones. Two of my top choices would be the second and fourth because they’re tough without being long.

The course has its share of penal hazards, as in, carry the water or reload, but there are a number of holes where the hazards require subtle choices, and not just a well struck shot. There are many doglegs which allow a player to take a more aggressive line to have one less club or a better angle to the green.

The par-5 fifth is such a hole. There are a number of cross bunkers in play on the tee shot, and challenging the cross bunkers sets up a better angle for the rest of the hole. The par-5 seventeenth provides similar choices particularly with the target on the second shot where a tree splits the layup area. Players who choose the wider landing area on the right have a tough angle to the long narrow green and must carry four nasty bunkers guarding the right side. The gap on the left is much narrower but leaves an approach shot looking straight down the length of the green.

How did I play? As my old golfing buddy CJ would say, I’m glad you asked. Given the rust, I probably pushed my limit by playing the blues (6500 yards 136 slope), but after an opening triple, I settled into an even par four hole stretch of fours, punctuated by an over the ridge par saving bomb on number four and a slicing 20-footer for birdie on number five. Except for a solid par on the tricky par-4 seventh where I hit a dandy approach over water to about 20 feet, The rest of the nine was not kind. The final tally for the front nine, was five fours and four sevens for a 48.

The back nine was more conventional with three pars, three bogeys and three doubles for a 45 and 93 total, about what I expected as a rusty 14 handicapper.

Any beefs? With the limited play it seemed like some of the bunkers hadn’t been attended to, but overall the course was excellent, both the layout and condition, and the few staff members I encountered were welcoming. When I return, I know I can’t expect to have the course to myself, but I do look forward to returning to this tree-lined golf refuge in better weather with a sharper game to see if I can rock the fox.