There’s a certain feeling to an early Memorial Day weekend tee time in Massachusetts. The house may seem a bit more still, but you move a little faster through the morning checklist, caffeine in the system, keys found, clubs loaded, hoping to get a jump on any traffic and into the day before the rest of the world catches up. The group text then begins to buzz with who’s bringing extra layers, who’s running late, who’s already on the range. There may still be a chill in the air, but the dreary stretch of spring feels mostly behind you. By the back nine, that pullover is probably in the cart, the grass has some life underfoot, and the round has settled into something that feels bigger than one scorecard: friends together, a course coming alive, and summer finally within reach.
More than a century ago, Massachusetts golfers seemed to understand golf on Memorial Day in much the same way. A 1902 Boston Evening Transcript item captured that feeling well, calling Memorial Day the “prize holiday” placed after the rawness of early spring but before the heavy heat of midsummer. Until 1971, the holiday fell on May 30 every year. When it landed near a weekend, as it did that year, golfers could turn it into something close to a two-day celebration on the links. Now it can be so much more.
But Memorial Day is more than a long weekend and a full tee sheet. Whether you pull up to the bag drop or change your shoes at the car, the day asks for a moment of perspective. At its core, it is a solemn pause to honor those who gave their lives in military service. So this weekend can hold both truths. It can mark the start of full-fledged golf season, and it can ask golfers to pause and remember.
With that in mind, here are four public Massachusetts courses with specific ties to our military’s history.
At Westover Golf Course, the military connection is hard to miss. Helicopters and aircraft regularly pass overhead, and the melody of ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ is often heard from the nearby base, reminding you of what sits right alongside the course.
The course opened in 1947 as a nine-hole recreational layout tied to what was then Westover Air Force Base, an active Strategic Air Command installation. It expanded to 18 holes in 1957 and remained a base facility into the 1970s, serving personnel stationed at Westover, with clubs available for those who did not have their own.
Opened in 1939 ahead of World War II, Westover served during the war as a bomber training base and a port of embarkation and debarkation. Though the base was deactivated in the 1970s, it later became Westover Air Reserve Base and today is the largest Air Force Reserve base in the U.S. The 439th Airlift Wing is located here with more than 1,660 personnel. The wing operates eight C-5 Super Galaxy aircraft and provides worldwide air movement of troops, supplies, equipment and medical patients.
When the base no longer had active duty status, the golf course found a new life. According to longtime Westover Director of Golf Bill Kubinski, the Town of Ludlow purchased the course in 1973 for $1.74 and opened it to the public.
Today, Westover remains a traditional New England test, with narrow, tree-lined fairways winding through pine and hardwood. Doglegs, water hazards and greenside bunkers give it shape, and from the back tees it stretches to 7,025 yards with a 73.7 course rating and 131 slope. As such, it has one of the strongest playing rosters among Mass Golf Member Clubs. In 2025, Westover ranked among the top five Massachusetts clubs with the lowest average Handicap Index, at 11.34 overall (11.07 for men and 15.71 for women).
Situated about 40 miles northwest of Boston, Red Tail Golf Club is built on land that once belonged to Fort Devens, the former U.S. Army base and artillery range where soldiers trained from World War I into the 1990s. Before course construction began, the 185-acre site had to be searched for old munitions, which turned up a handful of bullet casings and a discharged hand grenade.
That history is far from forgotten. The second hole, named “Tank Crossing,” recalls the area where tanks once moved through the property. It is also one of the course’s more memorable holes, a par 5 that bends right toward a green set near a large hill, with (sand) bunkers cut into the slope.
The military past continues on the back nine. No. 10, “Foundations,” takes its name from the old housing foundations that helped shape the fairway’s rolling terrain. No. 11, “Gravel Pit,” points back to a former base gravel pit.
The last two holes are particularly memorable. Playing from a platform tee to a boomerang-shaped fairway, No. 17, “Bunker,” is also not a reference to sand, but to the ammunition storage bunkers that once dotted the area. The closing par 5, ‘Temptation,’ plunges downhill and swings right, giving longer hitters a chance to reach in two if they’re willing to take on the pond guarding a green that leaves almost no room for error.
The name alone makes Patriot Golf Course feel right for Memorial Day weekend, but the connection runs deeper than that. The nine-hole course is operated by Hanscom Air Force Base’s 66th Force Support Squadron and sits on the grounds of the Edith Nourse Rogers Memorial Veterans Hospital in Bedford, just a few miles from Hanscom.
In 2023, it was voted the Best U.S. Military Small Golf Course by the Air Force Services Center. The facility includes a driving range, putting and chipping greens, golf carts, a full-service pro shop and a snack bar. The course is set up at about 2,883 yards. Its best defense is around the greens, where small, undulating surfaces and protective mounding put a premium on touch. It is playable for golfers of all abilities, and especially friendly on foot, with a fairly level routing and greens set close to the next tee.
Hanscom opened the course to public play in 2019, expanding its role from a base recreation facility to a community course with a military identity. In the summer, the club offers a $20 special that pairs a bucket of range balls with five cans of Pabst Blue Ribbon, a beer with its own wartime footnote: In 1942, Pabst copyrighted the slogan “Drink a Blue Ribbon Toast to Victory.”
While public play is welcome, military members, veterans and authorized Department of Defense personnel still receive priority for prime playing times, according to Community Support Flight chief Paul Hartigan when public access was announced in 2019.
Falcon Golf Club sits on Joint Base Cape Cod, just over the Bourne Bridge, giving it one of the most direct military connections of any public course in Massachusetts. The nine-hole, par-36 layout stretches more than 3,300 yards from the back tees and is operated as part of Coast Guard Morale, Welfare and Recreation (MWR). It is also one of only two golf courses owned and operated by the U.S. Coast Guard, the other being Bear Valley Golf Course in Kodiak, Alaska.
Because Falcon is located on an active military base, getting there is part of the experience. Golfers without an active or retired military ID can access the course with a one-day base pass, though they should be prepared for a security check before entering.
When you do arrive, the facility has a full driving range and practice area, plus firm turf that can produce some extra rollout. The par-3 third, with an abandoned railroad track behind the tee and a fescue-edged bunker guarding the green, is among its prettiest holes, while the 424-yard sixth, a gently bending par 4 with a two-tiered green.
For Memorial Day weekend, the area draws visitors for another reason as well. Just minutes from Falcon is Massachusetts National Cemetery in Bourne, where the VA will hold a public Memorial Day ceremony at 1 p.m. this Sunday to honor those who died in service to the country. Across the VA’s 129 national cemeteries, the weekend brings ceremonies, flag placements and other acts of remembrance.
Simply put, around here, the meaning of the weekend is on full display and far from forgotten.
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