Bretton Woods Golf Course

The Mount Washington Course at the Omni Mount Washington Resort is a Donald Ross design from 1915, set beneath the Presidential Mountain Range in Carroll, New Hampshire. The course was meticulously restored in 2008 by Brian Silva, who recovered original Ross-era fairway bunkers — including a signature 'Principal's Nose' bunker on the fourth hole — and removed decades of tree encroachment to restore the wide meadowland vistas Ross intended. The result earned a No. 1 public course ranking in New Hampshire from Golfweek shortly after reopening.

The Mount Washington Course at Bretton Woods occupies a storied sites in American golf history, set against the backdrop of the White Mountains and adjacent to the iconic Omni Mount Washington Resort hotel in Carroll, New Hampshire. The course was commissioned in 1915 by Carolyn Foster Stickney — daughter-in-law of the resort's founder, Joseph Stickney, who had constructed the grand hotel between 1900 and 1902 — and entrusted to Donald Ross, already established as the preeminent golf course architect in America. Ross arrived at Bretton Woods with a clear vision. The ancient riverbed beneath the property provided gentle, natural rolls and swells that Ross exploited with characteristic skill, routing the course through open meadowland framed by the White Mountains and the Presidential Range to the east. The design philosophy Ross applied at Bretton Woods was consistent with his broader body of work: fairways of generous width that nonetheless demanded thoughtful positioning, crowned greens that repelled inaccurate approach shots, and a course that rewarded strategic thinking as much as raw power.

For decades following Ross's original construction, the course underwent the gradual changes typical of courses from that era — tree planting along fairways, bunker modifications, and the slow evolution of maintenance practices that altered the original character of the layout. By the early 2000s, the Mount Washington Course had drifted meaningfully from Ross's intent, its meadowland openness obscured by tree growth and its original bunker placements largely forgotten. In 2008, architect Brian Silva undertook a full restoration of the Ross design, working from original plans and period documentation to return the course to its 1915 configuration. Silva and his team rediscovered fairway bunkers perpendicular to the line of play that had been lost over the decades, including the signature "Principal's Nose" bunker on the fourth hole — a bunker style that Ross had employed at several of his finest courses, most famously at Pinehurst No. 2. Silva also removed substantial tree growth to reopen the meadowland vistas that Ross had considered essential to the course's character.

The restored course stretches to 7,004 yards from the championship Gold tees with a course rating of 73.7 and a slope of 135, fully capable of testing accomplished competitive golfers while remaining accessible from the shorter tee positions. Five sets of tees accommodate resort guests of varying ability levels. In March 2009, Golfweek recognized the restored Mount Washington Course as the No. 1 public golf course in New Hampshire — a distinction that confirmed Silva's restoration had returned the course to the prominence Ross originally intended. The resort's companion nine-hole layout, the Mount Pleasant Course, traces its origins to 1895 and remains one of the oldest golf holes in continuous operation in the United States. Together with the Mount Washington Course, Bretton Woods offers a standout historically significant golf experiences in New England.

The resort itself gained international fame as the site of the 1944 Bretton Woods Conference, at which 44 Allied nations established the post-war international monetary framework that created the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. The golf course operates today under the Omni Hotels banner, welcoming both resort guests and outside visitors to one of Donald Ross's finest surviving works.