Sakonnet Golf Club

Overview: Sakonnet Golf Club occupies the southern tip of Little Compton, where stone walls, open coastal ground and sea views give the course a strong sense of place. Its 18 holes are compact by modern championship standards, but the challenge is not slight: narrow playing corridors, small greens and the persistent Atlantic wind make placement more important than brute force. Donald Ross’s work is particularly effective here because the routing uses the natural landscape rather than masking it. The result is an atmospheric New England course in which the boundaries, horizon and ground contours are part of the strategy.

History: Sakonnet was founded in 1899, and Donald Ross had a close connection with Little Compton, where he made his summer home. The club’s own account describes him designing the course and refining it hole by hole over two decades, while Rhode Island Golf Association records place his principal Sakonnet work in the early 1920s. That distinction matters: the club’s origin predates the mature Ross routing, and the course developed in stages rather than appearing as a single-day design. The long period of refinement helped preserve the property’s coastal character while giving its greens and hazards a more deliberate strategic structure.

Did You Know? Sakonnet is one of the rare courses where the architect also maintained a summer home in the surrounding community. The official course description lists an 18-hole par 70 layout of 6,337 yards, with sea views and stone walls as defining features. Those walls are not simply scenery; they help reveal how the course grew out of the old agricultural landscape of Little Compton.