WALPOLE, N.H. – So on those days when you are in conversation with your golf soul – and sure as joy is unleashed as soon as that first tee is pushed into the green turf, you have a golf soul – the curiosity is topical.
Can the game be kept affordable, and in a serene setting where simplicity and time-honored treasures warm your spirit and carry you from one lovely hole to the next.
For this golfer’s soul the answer required a 2 ½-hour ride over 117 miles of small-town pleasantness but it was a resounding yes, one that echoed across a picturesque backdrop that included the Connecticut River Valley, the Green Mountains of Vermont, and Mount Monadnock in New Hampshire.
YES. Yes. Yesssssss . . . Oh, my yes.
Hooper Golf Course met all my expectations. Edit that. It surpassed my expectations, which had been set pretty high, to tell the truth.
Oh, the seeds of curiosity had been planted when my eyes years ago caught those Tom Doak quotes – “I consider Hooper the second-best nine-hole course in America” and “I racked my brain trying to think if I’d ever seen a better pair of opening holes (than Hooper’s).” And if fellow New England golf scribes Kevin Mendik and the late Bob Labbance, gentlemen who had far more insight into the life and times of those distinguished designers of Hooper, Wayne Stiles and John Van Kleek, were smitten with this gem of a golf course in this “quintessential New England village,” which is how the legendary James Michener described Walpole, how could my intrigue not be piqued?
What pushed it over the top was a conversation with golf course designer Jeff Stein. (https://www.powerfades.com/archives/2026-01-21). In discussing one of the latest stops in his career path, Stein talked of his restoration work at Hooper Golf Course. His praise gushed forth.
“The hype for Hooper,” he said, “is very real.”
And with that, my commitment was confirmed and when a date to play was set for June 13, the days ahead of time were spent doing homework.
Mendik, who co-authored with Labbance the book “The Life and Work of Wayne Stiles,” assured me the visit would be rewarding. “Hooper is among the most true to original intent and layout as any of extant nines,” he wrote in a text. "The work that was done by Jeff Stein was very sensitive to Stiles’ work.”
As first impressions go, both Benni Wescott, a club professional, and Sable Westover, whose smile adds even greater warmth to the adjacent Watkins Inn (which opened in 1795 but officially became the course clubhouse in 1927) are women who set the tone for the day of golf. Vibrant and welcoming, they help usher you into a setting that gives you a sense of being in a time capsule.
This is a town where Louis May Alcott lived 175 years ago and if she wrote glowingly about “the rolling farmlands and charming homesteads” that offered a peaceful relief from city life, the author of “Little Women” would be pleased to know it’s still very much like that.
“We are blessed to live here,” said Josh Beer. “We love our town.”
A school teacher who was born and raised in Walpole, Beer is the president of Hooper Golf Course and could regale you for hours about the history of this land. But suffice it to say, the land that George Levi Hooper put in a trust to the town became of interest when Wayne Stiles and John Van Kleek were hired to design a nine-hole golf course.
Oh, how they succeeded because since 1927 (that’s right, the centennial will be next year) Hooper Golf Course has earned praise for its rolling fairways, magnificent greens, wondrous aesthetics that incorporate stone walls and a dirt road, capped by a challenging yet playable design. Played to a par of 36 (two par 3s, five par 4s, two par 5s) should you play it a second time, it will mean a par of 35 – 71 as the first hole shifts from a par 5 to a par 4 as No. 10.
To gush over the challenges Hooper throws at you across 6,023 yards – the tee shot at No. 2 is a blast, so, too, the short approach into the 285-yard, par-4 third, and the two-tiered green at the short, 155-yard fourth hole has your attention, and everything about the 350-yard ninth is a joy – makes you realize these the lofty rankings for Hooper are deserved.
(It is No. 13 in Golf Magazine’s top 50 nine-holers in the word. In Golf Digest’s list of the best nine-holers, Hooper sits 11th.)
If you're thinking this is a gentle and serene setting just off the 10th tee, well it is even better in person. To sit and watch golfers play their shots into a background of mountains and trees fulfills a mission (below) that is beautifully stated.
But on a day of brilliant sunshine, Josh Beer’s storytelling went toe-to-toe with the golf we played for being the most beautiful part of the day. What was especially heartwarming was to hear the story of how Beer and 25 other townsfolks got together in 2019 and bought the golf course from a local man, Fred Dill, who had purchased it a year earlier at a time when rumors were circulating about a possible housing development.
Shudders.
If Dill’s action saved Hooper Golf Course, his sale to like-minded townsfolks enabled it to thrive. “We just felt it was important to the people in town,” said Beer, who was too busy with other sports as a kid to play much golf. But now he’s an avid golfer and truly covets the prestige Hooper Golf Course maintains in golf circles.
If the group of owners relish the motto that is often used to promote Hooper – Internationally ranked, community driven, perfectly playable– they should be showered with praise for making such a gem incredibly public and wildly affordable at a time when that is not the case for many stops in the industry.
“We wanted it called Hooper Golf Course,” said Beer, emphasizing the last word. “We were sensitive about calling it a club, that people would think it was private. But we are very public.”
Amen to that and cheers to the owners for a price structure that is so pleasing – $30 for nine, $50 for 18 on weekdays, $35 and $55 on weekends. Memberships are available, as is pretty much standard fare with all courses; but a price structure that falls in the $425 to $1,450 range is extremely attractive.
The affordable concept is no surprise given that the owners are committed to maintaining not only its embrace of community, but its high-esteem that is well earned in the golf world.
To know that Alcott lived in Walpole, that Michener did, too, when he started writing his epic “Hawaii” and that award-winning documentary filmmaker Ken Burns makes his home here is impressive.
Thus is the aura of a creative community very real for a town that is smack on the Vermont border and just 20 miles from the Massachusetts state line. So one could say that the owners of Hooper Golf Course are very much in that mode, their creative community spirit helping to maintain a deep respect for its heritage while spreading the joy of golf to all who want to partake.
Well played by all at Hooper.
