Municipal records and contemporary city documents attribute New Bedford’s first public course at this site to Donald Ross in 1920, when a nine-hole “Whaling City” course was laid out for municipal play. The city’s own summary of the property—prepared in connection with later land-use planning—states that Ross “designed and built the original nine-hole Whaling City Golf Course” in 1920. What is not yet available for research are the primary materials that would normally corroborate such a commission: a Ross routing plan, construction correspondence, or club/municipal minutes detailing scope and fees.
The course grew to a full eighteen in 1947 under Buster and Stanley Brown, names that recur in regional accounts of post-war course building. Local and city sources consistently credit the Browns with the 18-hole build and with bringing the course—then still widely referred to as New Bedford Public Links—into post-war form. In the decades that followed, highway construction (Route 140 and I-195) forced alterations to portions of the layout, including rerouting of certain holes; surviving municipal and newspaper accounts describe a course periodically disrupted by transportation projects and restored to 18-hole operation afterward.
By 2000–2001, under contract operations, the city closed portions of the course to complete a renovation that modernized infrastructure and turf while re-establishing continuity to the 18-hole layout. Trade and tee-sheet sources from that period describe new irrigation, bentgrass conversion on tees/fairways, bunker work, and cart-path additions, with re-opening in spring 2001. None of the available public documents attribute that work to a named golf-course architect; it appears to have been construction-led capital improvement rather than a historically framed restoration.
Unique Design Characteristics
Because definitive Ross drawings for the 1920 municipal nine have not surfaced in accessible archives, identifying exactly which present-day holes carry original Ross green pads or fairway landforms requires inference. Two lines of evidence are available. First, municipal and course materials repeatedly assert that “several remaining Donald Ross designed holes” persist in today’s 18; second, on-site features with a pre-war profile—subtle, elevated push-up greens with tilting runoff, and diagonal fairway bunkering suited to ground approach—are observable by players and frequently noted in local commentary.
Within the current course rules and descriptions, a few location clues—however modest—help anchor the ground. The stone wall left of the present 10th and the lined drainage ditches flanking the present 16th point to corridors that pre-date late-20th-century construction, while the broad, open character of the interior holes aligns with the kind of municipal routing Ross favored on sandy-loam outwash in southeastern Massachusetts. Without verified plans, we avoid assigning specific hole numbers to Ross’s 1920 nine; however, long-time local accounts generally place the earliest holes on the higher, airier central ground rather than at the edges later influenced by highway rights-of-way.
In play today, the most “Ross-like” experiences at Whaling City remain those greens that shed to closely-mown surrounds with short-grass recovery, and approach lines where bunkers guard on diagonals rather than directly fronting the target. Based on topographic feel, several mid-length two-shotters in the interior (holes typically playing across the subtle, wind-exposed plateau) are the strongest candidates for carrying forward Ross’s original green sites, while some peripheral holes—reworked for highway or drainage reasons—show more modern shaping and bunker edges.
Historical Significance
Whaling City’s claim within the Ross corpus rests on its municipal mission and date. If the city’s 1920 attribution is borne out by primary documentation, the New Bedford nine would join a cluster of public-access Ross works in New England from the early 1920s, representing the period when towns and cities began commissioning purpose-built public links. That context matters in southeastern Massachusetts, where private clubs (notably Country Club of New Bedford, a Willie Park, Jr. design from the same era) dominated organized golf. A Ross municipal layout serving mill-town residents in 1920 illustrates the spread of affordable public golf just before the post-war expansion.
While Whaling City has not figured in national rankings, its civic role has kept it in local headlines. Beginning in the late 2010s, the city advanced proposals to carve a business or advanced-manufacturing campus from a portion of the property; those plans explicitly referenced the course’s history (including the 1920 Ross nine and the 1947 expansion) as part of explaining the site’s evolution and the intention to retain 18 holes even with redevelopment. Such debates underscore the endurance of Ross-era municipal courses as community assets a century on.
Current Condition / Integrity
By any fair measure, Whaling City today is a composite course. The routing is largely post-1947, reflecting the Browns’ 18-hole build and later reroutings for highway projects. The greens and bunkers have seen multiple generations of work, culminating in the 2000–2001 renovation that standardized irrigation and turf composition.
Course-management sources describe “several remaining Donald Ross designed holes,” but no public document identifies them hole-by-hole, and no published restoration report has traced original green perimeters with survey-grade certainty. In practice, the integrity of Ross elements appears partial and localized, most likely at selected green sites whose scale, elevation, and runoff characteristics are consistent with pre-war push-up construction and have not been materially rebuilt since 2001.
As for later alterations, the highways (I-195, Route 140) had meaningful impact on routing continuity and edge corridors, necessitating shifted tees and greens and changed sightlines. The 2001 renovation added cart paths and refreshed bunker sand lines, elements that, while improving daily-fee functionality, tend to mute antique bunker character where it survived. The practice range and clubhouse area now occupy ground that would not have been part of the 1920 municipal footprint.
Sources & Notes
City of New Bedford (press/backgrounder for municipal redevelopment concept), “Officials present concept to convert part of municipal golf course to business park,” May 18, 2017. (States: “In 1920, famed architect Donald Ross designed and built the original nine-hole Whaling City Golf Course… the addition of nine holes in 1947.”)
Whaling City Golf Course official site, “Welcome” and “Our Golf Course” pages (course yardage, public status, 1947 Browns attribution; notes on highway-driven changes; statement that several Ross holes remain).
New Bedford Light, “New pitch for business park at Whaling City Golf Course,” Jan 23, 2025 (course acreage, plan to keep 18 holes, course opened in 1947).
SouthCoast Today (local newspaper), “City course faces obstacles,” June 13, 1998 (timing of reroutings and disruptions, late-1990s works leading toward 2001 normalcy).
SouthCoast Today, “Golf course managing company opts out of contract with city,” Sept 7, 2017 (management/operator chronology since 2001).
Club + Resort Business, “Plans for Manufacturing Site at Whaling City GC Move Forward,” Feb 2, 2022 (property size and redevelopment context).