Vermont doesn’t do anything halfway, and neither does Stowe Country Club. On the eve of the redesigned 18-hole course reopening, the clubhouse buzzed with members, locals, and staff while architect Beau Welling and Mt. Mansfield Company President Sam Gaines celebrated a project years in the making.
The transformation of Stowe Country Club represents a meaningful investment in both the game of golf and the future of the Stowe community. This project honors the history of the course while reimagining it for the next generation. – Sam Gaines, President, Mansfield Company
It didn’t feel like a typical ribbon-cutting — it felt like a community welcoming back one of its landmarks. The next morning, I found out exactly why.
Inside the Stowe Country Club Redesign: What Actually Changed
This isn’t a new golf course dressed up in new landscaping. It’s the same dirt, cracked open and rebuilt. The property sits on the old Le Liberté dairy farmland that’s been growing something since the early 20th century, first hay and cattle, now fairways. The redesign doesn’t bury that history under sod; it works with it. The land still rolls like farmland because it is farmland. Everything underneath it, though, is new.
And the scope isn’t subtle. All 18 holes got touched, under a Beau Welling Design plan built on three non-negotiables: walkability, playability at every skill level, and sustainability that isn’t just a buzzword on a press release. Greens and tees, torn out and rebuilt. Fairways, reshaped and regraded. Bunkers, redone with the Better Billy Bunker system — a liner-based build that keeps sand from turning into soup every time Vermont decides to dump three inches of rain in an afternoon.
The turf’s a full teardown too: premium bentgrass across greens, tees, and fairways, Kentucky bluegrass and fescue holding down the rough, all of it fed by overhauled irrigation and drainage. This isn’t a course built to look good for opening week photos. It’s built to still be this sharp in fifteen years. Add a long-term tree management plan and expanded fescue that finally opens up sightlines to Mount Mansfield, and the whole property breathes differently than it used to.
The upgrades don’t stop at the tee box. A new golf facilities area beefs up the practice side, and out on the course, a new comfort station — the “Sugar Shack” — sits between the 5th and 14th holes with restrooms and food and drink service. The Sugar Shack itself was a beautiful sight amidst the course, with the mountains perched beside it.
The golf world’s already taking notice — LINKS magazine tapped Stowe as one of its “9 Notable Course Redesigns since 2020.” That’s not a local headline. That’s a national one.
A New Course for All Skill Levels
On paper, the course is not extremely intimidating. Par-71, under 6,500 yards — but don’t be fooled.
Welling didn’t build difficulty out of length. He built it out of terrain, green complexes, and bunkering that punishes bad decisions rather than short swings. Distance off the tee only gets a player so far — the course consistently rewards accuracy and course management over raw power, so players hitting shorter, well-placed shots often find themselves with better angles into the greens than those simply trying to overpower a hole. Bombing it isn’t an automatic advantage here — sometimes it’s a trap. That’s not a flaw in the design. That’s the entire design.
It’s the kind of course design you’d expect from someone with Welling’s résumé. His firm, Beau Welling Design, has spent nearly two decades shaping some of the game’s most talked-about venues — Omni PGA Frisco, Pelican Golf Club, Ocean Forest Club, Atlanta Country Club, and Omni Amelia Island among them, alongside land-planning work at places like Bluejack National in Texas. Stowe is a smaller footprint than some of those marquee names, but it carries the same fingerprints: a course shaped around how the land actually moves, not forced into a template.
From the outset, our goal was to create a course that feels true to its setting while enhancing the overall playing experience. By working with the land’s natural movement and refining its existing character, we’ve shaped a layout that offers greater variety and flexibility, making it engaging and enjoyable for players of all levels. – Beau Welling, Owner, Beau Welling Design
Play it once, and that stops sounding like PR copy. Beginners get room to breathe and a course that doesn’t bully them off the first tee. Better players get exposed the second they try to overpower a hole instead of reading it. It’s a layout with challenge, accessibility, and fun for all players.
Course Conditions: Immaculate for a First Season
A Vermont golf course opening in June has every excuse to look rough around the edges. Stowe didn’t take it. With the last snow leaving the mountains in April, the grounds staff had very little time to get the course into what was tip-top shape. Fairways were immaculate, bunkers were sharp-edged and consistent, and the greens were already rolling true — not “true for a new course,” just true. I’ve played at various courses in Vermont, and that’s not always the case.
Then there’s the backdrop, which honestly does half the work for free. Every hole plays with Mount Mansfield and the Green Mountains sitting right there in your sightline — the kind of view that makes a bad shot sting less and a good one feel like it mattered more.
Stowe Country Club Membership: A Reopening With Momentum Behind It
The energy in that clubhouse wasn’t just vibes — there are numbers behind it. Michael Harger, General Manager of Stowe Country Club and The Club at Spruce Peak, said the club has welcomed more than 200 new members across Stowe Country Club and The Club at Spruce Peak since the transformation was first announced. That’s not a soft number. That’s a membership betting on a multi-year construction project before it ever saw a finished hole.
Membership now splits two ways: a standalone Stowe Country Club membership, or access through The Club at Spruce Peak, which stacks in the neighboring Bob Cupp-designed Mountain Course, a spa and fitness center, pools, and year-round programming across the wider Spruce Peak community. Pair the two courses together, and Stowe isn’t just a redesign story anymore — it’s a legitimate 36-hole destination in a region that doesn’t have many of those to offer.
The golf is just the opening act, too. This redevelopment is part of a bigger push to make Stowe a true four-season mountain destination, with a new clubhouse, expanded dining, racquet sports, and additional fitness and wellness amenities already in the pipeline. The course isn’t the finish line here — it’s the first domino in a much longer buildout, one that doesn’t care if it’s July or January.
Stay and Play at Stowe Country Club
You don’t need a membership card to play it, either. Guests staying at The Lodge at Spruce Peak and its affiliated residences get access to Stowe Country Club, right alongside Club at Spruce Peak members — which means this redesign isn’t locked behind a waitlist. It’s bookable. Combine that with the neighboring Mountain Course, and Spruce Peak becomes one of the rare spots in New England where a visitor can play two otherwise private 18-hole courses on the same trip.
If you’re the type who plans a trip around tee times, Spruce Peak’s stay-and-play packages pair a Lodge stay directly with course access, bookable through the resort’s site. Worth building an itinerary around if one round was never going to be enough anyway.
More to come from my visit to Spruce Lodge and The Mountain Course at Stowe — a round that, somehow, delivered even more stunning views than Stowe Country Club.
Course conditions, layout details, and membership figures per Stowe Country Club/Spruce Peak press materials. Quotes from Sam Gaines, Beau Welling, and Michael Harger via official release.
