By Richard Rapp
rrapp@massgolf.org
WESTON, Massachusetts (July 2, 2025) – Wedged between the 1st and 18th holes at Pine Book Country Club, you’ll find a double-decker driving range. The bottom level is built into a hill, forming what looks like a twice-as-snug Fenway Park dugout, only about seven mats wide. The result is an interesting acoustical experience, with deep echoing thwacks emanating from below, harmonizing with the more staccato iron clicks plucked off turf on the open-air second level.
The cacophony ceased all at once, as though some range-picker-turned-maestro had waved her hands for silence. Each of the mat-slappers, in addition to the practice-green-putters, dutifully paused and turned towards a strip of rough left of the 18th fairway. One of their own, Rebecca Skoler (Needham, MA) was settling over the ball, vying for a spot on the national stage at the 2025 U.S. Women’s Amateur Championship at Bandon Dunes. With the ball above her feet and the flag on the right side of the green, Skoler cooly knocked the 120-yard approach to 15 feet, then two-putted her way to Oregon. Her round of 1-over 71 earned her medalist honors.
The leaderboard was unsettled throughout the day, and even as the last few groups came down the stretch, it was tough to make out what the necessary number might be. Grace Wang (Rochester Hills, MI), a member of the Michigan Wolverines, tried to avoid getting distracted with the ebbs and flows of the results page. When she ran in a 45-foot, pin-rattling birdie putt on the 18th hole, she still wasn’t certain her round of 2-over would suffice. But in the end, that putt was the difference between a playoff and a ticket onward.
Fresh off the conclusion of her collegiate playing career at the University of Virginia, and with a job lined up for the fall, Skoler was uncertain what her summer might look like golf-wise. A year after making it to match play at the U.S. Women’s Am at Southern Hills, and with a qualifying opportunity on her home track, it certainly seems like a trip out to Bandon Dunes was always in the cards. Then she came out and birdied the first, one of only two players to do so, and with her father on the bag, she was off and running.
The support from her club was apparent throughout the round, with members peering over the top of signature Stiles and Van Kleek mounding around the greens, on tip-toes to catch a glimpse of her birdie bids. That support did not go unnoticed by Skoler.
“Definitely super comforting to be at my home course and kind of the place where it all started. And now I’m, like, wrapping up my career here. So that was really awesome. And just the support system through, like, the groundskeepers and, you know, the head pros and all the members here that were out to watch and support today. That means so much to me and is really special to have here.”
The quick undulating greens challenged the field throughout. The 15th green is a marvel. A giant, crinkly potato chip with air pockets abound. I walked around it twice, mesmerized. Skoler understandably three-putted the behemoth from some 70 feet to drop to two-over, which at the time, looked like it would fall outside the cutline. But she quickly bounced back with a birdie on the par-3 16th.
“I think it was 170 to the pin, but downhill, downwind. I hit a seven iron that kind of looked like it went right over the cup to five feet. That was a nice birdie that I needed after struggling a bit on the greens up here today.”
After burning the edge for birdie on 17, Skoler had a make-able look on the 18th, and she’d just seen the line from her playing partner. “I asked my dad, ‘do I need to make this or…’ and he was like, ‘making it would probably get you out of a playoff, but it looks like a two-putt par could get you in a playoff,'” recalled Skoler. “I wasn’t necessarily trying to put it in the back of the cup, but I just kind of struggled with my pace all day out here. Hit it like seven feet by, but luckily I made the comebacker.”
And so the pride of Pine Brook Country Club, not to mention the 2023 Massachusetts Women’s Amateur champ, ought not call it a career just yet. There’s more golf to be played this summer.
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Grace Wang may be a Michigander, but Boston has been home during her summer internship. Frankly, she sounds a lot like some other Boston-based golf obsessives I know:
“I’m really just trying to find any opportunity I can to golf and it’s hard working while golfing, so after work I would usually end around five, quickly rush home, get to the closest public course, which is Granite Links. Then I practice until sunset and then pretty much go home, eat, and then have the same day on repeat.”
Those stolen practice hours have paid off, as Wang will be making her first appearance at a U.S. Women’s Amateur. She made several key two-putts from distance down the stretch to stay in the mix, setting the stage for a big moment on the 18th.
“I don’t really like to know where I am on the leaderboard, but I thought just going up from 16 I was at a good pace, and I really just wanted to take it one shot at a time, and if I do get a chance for a birdie, like, great, but par is really good on this course.”
From the center of the fairway on the last, Wang hit her approach to the back fringe, some 45 feet above the hole, leaving a tricky downhiller.
“I honestly was just like, ‘get it close to the hole.’ I wasn’t really like, ‘make it.’ But I ended up making it.”
Her putt carried plenty of pace, but it struck the pin in the dead center and dropped to the bottom of the cup for a birdie, the only three the 18th ceded all day.
“I’m like, shaking right now. I’m so excited. Like, so many great, great, great female golfers have played in that and it’s just another opportunity and experience that I’m super excited for. And yeah, I’m excited to go to Oregon.”
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COMPLETE LIST OF WOMEN’S AMATEUR QUALIFIERS AND ALTERNATES FROM PINE BROOK CC
QUALIFIER (Name, City, Score)
Rebecca Skoler, Needham, MA; (+1) 71
Grace Wang, Rochester Hills, MI; (+2) 72
ALTERNATES (In Order)
Allison Paik, Boston, MA; (+3) 73
Clara Ding, Canada; (+4) 74
Pine Brook was founded in 1924 by a group of successful Jewish businessmen and professionals drawn together by their shared passion for golf yet excluded from the existing clubs of the time. They banded together to form the ABC Development Company. Starting with a generous donation from charter member Benjamin Loring Young, a lawyer-turned-politician, the group purchased 49 acres that included a Renaissance Rival brick mansion known as Doublet Hill as their home base. They then acquired the Ferndale Farm to give it space for an entire 18-hole golf course.
Discussing the layout itself, designer Wayne Stiles said in 1924 that Pine Brook has no blind holes, no two holes alike, and that all fairways have an average width of 160-190 feet with remarkably tall trees. In the form of many renowned Stiles designs (Taconic, Thorny Lea, Franklin), Pine Brook has several elevated greensites, and you won’t find a flat hole or flat lie in many spaces.
In terms of notable figures, Bob Crowley was once described as the heart and soul of Pine Brook. The former head golf professional from 1961-1991 was a 2016 inductee into the Massachusetts Golf Hall of Fame. After winning the 1950 New England Intercollegiate while attending Boston College, Crowley embarked on a professional career that included five NEPGA titles and four Mass Open and competed in 10 U.S. Opens and 10 PGA Championships. Known for his personable, approachable style, Crowley played at a time when touring pros also needed a job to make a living, and Crowley was drawn to Pine Brook in 1957 as an assistant pro, often playing with all different levels of players.
In Crowley fashion, he deflected his credit for his successful tenure: “No one has worked for a membership that has been better to them than the people at Pine Brook have been to me.”
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