So successful was the inaugural Hagen 54 in 2025, organizers are no longer seeking entrants for this year’s event. Instead, they are hyping next year’s event, already announcing that registration is open for 2027.
The Hagen 54 pays homage to a golf lover’s feat that occurred in 1920. In a single day England’s Jim Barnes, a four-time major champion whose ability to hit a golf ball long distances earned him the moniker “Long Jim,” and American Walter Hagen, an 11-time major champ, played all three Kent, England, links courses — Royal Cinque Ports, Royal St George’s and Prince’s Golf Club.
“The inaugural Hagen 54 exceeded all expectations,” said Rob McGuirk, general manager of Prince’s Golf Club. “To see golfers experience these three championship links courses in one day — just as Barnes and Hagen once did — was incredibly special.”
In addition to the golf, entrants enjoy on-course catering and optional caddie services, along with welcoming events and a post-round dinner. Find more information on the Hagen 54 and register for 2027.
The Maturing of Farm Neck
Though Farm Neck Golf Club is celebrating its 50th anniversary in 2026, golf was played on the club’s property dating back to the late 1890s. And to honor the club’s rich heritage, a renovation was undertaken to replace the course’s parkland past and replace it with a “sandplain grassland habitat” that once dominated this island landscape.
Located in Oak Bluffs, Massachusetts, course architect Mark Mungeam’s renovation is in its second growing season, and 2.5 acres of newly transplanted native grasses are establishing deeper root structures, more diverse color palettes and sustainable scrubby rough areas. Come September, the course will reflect a more natural setting instead of the wall-to-wall turf look that dominated the course’s past.
“That was the goal: to improve the course by ensuring it rested more naturally on this property,” Farm Neck general manager Tim Sweet says. “This has been a semi-private club for 50 years and it’s always been a gorgeous setting. But few visitors understood that golf was played here, on this property, starting in the late 1890s.”
Farm Neck occupies some 425 acres on the north shore of Martha’s Vineyard. In the late 19th century, when Oak Bluffs was a burgeoning collection of summer cottages, Cottage City Country Club first took shape at the north end of the property. The venture changed names and ownership several times through the 20th century before finally petering out in the late 1960s.
The original nine holes at Farm Neck GC debuted in 1976. They occupy the south-lying portion of this property, meaning these new holes — laid out by Mungeam’s former partner and mentor, Geoffrey Cornish — didn’t follow the old routing at all. Three years later, the back side, designed by Patrick Milligan, debuted on and around the original Cottage City golfing ground, though just one modern hole (the seaside 14th) follows that routing.
Conceived by different architects, the modern nines never quite synched up stylistically. It was Mungeam’s job to unify them. By the fall of 2023, the architect had been consulting to Farm Neck for 15 years: The many varieties of blue stem, sedge and fescue growing hale and hardy in nearly every direction were hard to miss.
“By mining the edges of existing golf holes — by exploring long abandoned golf holes and land occupied by an old grass airport runway — we found varieties that had been thriving here for more than a century,” says Mungeam, sitting president of the American Society of Golf Course Architects. “That’s the aesthetic element we used to tie the nines together. This sandy, scrubby, links look is very much in vogue today, but out here? It’s naturally occurring. It’s literally sustainable.
“You know it’s going to thrive and that’s huge. If you take fescues off a sod truck, from farms off island, they’re likely to fade. That sort of fescue monostand won’t blend well, either, especially with little blue stem. They won’t look the way we want. We saw great progress last season.”
Farm Neck’s shoulder seasons begin in September and April. Still a semi-private course, the public is welcome all year round, though members tend to make public tee times rather scarce in July and August.