Castine Golf Club

Castine Golf Club occupies a peninsula setting in the historic coastal town of Castine, Maine, where Penobscot Bay meets the Bagaduce River. Willie Park Jr., the two-time Open Championship winner who became one of golf's pioneering course architects, designed the layout in the early twentieth century. Park, known for his strategic bunkering and thoughtful use of terrain, created courses throughout the United States during this period, and Castine represents his work in New England's maritime landscape. The course plays across rolling terrain with views of the surrounding waters and the town's colonial-era architecture. Park's routing takes advantage of the natural elevation changes and coastal breezes that characterize golf in this part of Maine. The design reflects the strategic principles Park favored—rewarding accurate placement over pure distance and incorporating the land's natural contours rather than heavy earthmoving. Castine itself is among Maine's oldest settlements, with a history spanning French, British, Dutch, and American occupation. The golf club exists within this context of preserved eighteenth and nineteenth-century buildings and a landscape shaped by centuries of maritime activity. The course serves both seasonal visitors and a local membership drawn to the combination of Park's classic design and the peninsula's distinctive character. Play here offers a quieter alternative to some of Maine's better-known coastal courses, with the historical resonance of both the architect's pedigree and the town's deep New England roots.