Local resort owners organized Lake Kezar Country Club in the early 1920s and selected Donald Ross to lay out a course on orchard and pasture land donated near “No. 4” corners. Contemporary town notes record grading and topdressing work in late summer and fall 1923; the club’s guest register and reminiscences document active play beginning in August 1924, establishing 1924 as the first full playing season of the Ross nine. No surviving primary correspondence from Ross has been digitized, but the Lovell Historical Society has preserved construction entries from town historian Sumner Kimball that corroborate the 1923 build and 1924 opening.
For three-quarters of a century the course remained nine holes. In the late 1990s, the club added a second nine and renumbered the course to create today’s 18. The club’s own materials state the back nine “was added in 1998,” while contemporary trade-press coverage that year described a nine-hole addition designed by the club’s superintendent Brian Merrill; a later design essay places Merrill’s work in 1996 but describes the same renumbering scheme (new holes 9–17 followed by a finish on the Ross 18th). Reconciling 1996 vs. 1998 requires club minutes or permitting records, but the balance of club and town sources favors 1998 as the opening of the added nine.
Authorship of the back nine is variously credited. A Lovell Historical Society article, quoting Paul Dunn’s Great Donald Ross Golf Courses You Can Play (2001), attributes the addition to Paul Lusky, the club’s president at the time; a public golf directory credits “Paul Lesky and Brian Merril” (almost certainly misspellings of Lusky/Merrill); and the 1998 trade-press profile clearly identifies Merrill as designer of the added holes while acknowledging the Ross provenance of the original nine. Absent an architect-of-record plan, the cautious reading is that Merrill led design and field work, with Lusky as project champion. There is no evidence that Ross (or his associates) returned after 1924.
Unique Design Characteristics (course-specific)
On the original Ross outward nine, the ground itself does much of the work. The first four par-4s average just over 300 yards, yet the 2nd asks for a drive across a shallow dale framed by a prominent pine before an approach that must find the correct tier—an early example of how modest length is balanced by angle and contour on this property. The finishing 18th—still a Ross hole even after renumbering—plays between two commanding pines and over a buried stone wall (now a low berm) to a notably small target, an idiosyncratic green-site that gives the round a classical coda. These observed features, specific to Lake Kezar’s surviving Ross corridors, are attested by on-site essays and photography and align with the club’s own invitation to play the ball along the ground on the front side to avoid trouble beyond several greens.
The late-1990s inward nine presents a contrasting defense: tighter wooded corridors, more frequent cross-hazards and ponds, and bolder internal green contours. Commentary from the time highlights the par-5 11th and par-5 14th as tempting but exacting “tantalizers,” with reachable distances for aggressive play but greens that refuse casual two-putts. The 15th, a ~350-yard par-4 spanning a brushy gorge before bending left, and the picturesque short 17th reinforce the stylistic shift from Ross’s open, low-profile outward nine to a more overtly hazard-shaped inward stretch. This dichotomy—Ross outward, Merrill/Lusky inward—is one of the course’s defining modern characteristics.
Historical Significance
Lake Kezar represents Ross’s small-scale resort work in rural Maine during the mid-1920s, commissioned by local camp proprietors to anchor summer hospitality. The chronology is unusually well anchored by 1923 construction diary entries and August 1924 guest-register play, providing a rare, localized paper trail for a modest nine-hole project. Its later evolution—holding at nine for 75 years and only then expanding to 18—offers a case study in how many Ross nines in northern New England functioned for decades before modern additions doubled their capacity. Because the added nine was executed internally (by the superintendent with club leadership) rather than by a marquee outside architect, Kezar also records a late-20th-century trend among rural clubs to self-deliver expansions while consciously echoing an original architect’s style. While Lake Kezar has not figured in state-championship histories or national rankings, it has remained a community venue and local “best value,” repeatedly advertised as such by the club and regional guides.
Current Condition / Integrity
The routing integrity of the Ross outward nine appears intact: the corridors and green platforms remain on their original ground, and the course continues to encourage the bouncing approach that the club itself associates with the front side. There is no published record of wholesale green reconstruction or bunker re-sitings on the outward nine; equally, there is no digitized Ross plan to quantify perimeters or interior contours against present conditions. The inward nine, by contrast, is wholly a late-1990s creation, with the renumbering scheme placing the new sequence at 9–17 and returning to the Ross 18th for the finish. The result is a composite 18 where half of the holes trace directly to Ross’s 1920s layout and half reflect late-20th-century construction on different ground conditions (including wetlands), a point acknowledged in on-site analysis. From a preservation standpoint, the front side retains the highest Ross integrity; the finishing hole is an especially clear survivor.
Sources & Notes
Lovell Historical Society, “Lake Kezar Country Club,” Yesterday’s News, Summer 2016. Documents organization by local resort owners; 1923 construction notes from town historian Sumner Kimball; first play August 1924; long period as nine holes; and 1998 addition (attributed to club president Paul Lusky, citing Paul Dunn, Great Donald Ross Golf Courses You Can Play).
Lake Kezar Country Club — official site, Homepage and Course Overview. States “1924 Donald Ross Design” and that the “back 9 was added in 1998”; describes public access, walkability, and clubhouse origin as Schoolhouse No. 4.
Pete Blais, “There are Standards,” Golf Course News, Oct. 17, 1998 (MSU Turfgrass Information Center scan). Reports that superintendent Brian Merrill “designed the adjacent nine-hole addition that opened this summer,” i.e., 1998, and situates the original nine as Ross, 1923.
Hal Phillips, “What’s a Design Nerd to Think, ‘When Nines Don’t Match’?” Feb. 16, 2024. Provides course-specific descriptions of Ross 2nd and 18th, the nine-hole addition sequence (9–17, finishing on Ross 18th), and character of 11, 14, 15, 17 on the inward side; cites Brian Merrill as designer and gives 1996 as the year (treated here as a point of dispute with #5 and #2).
Town of Lovell, 2023 Annual Report (Dedication). Notes the club’s centennial recognition in 2023 and its early-20th-century resort origins; provides civic context for the course’s continuous operation.