Myopia Hunt Club’s beloved, quirky — and rarely, if ever, panned — golf course located off Route 1A in South Hamilton remains in exalted status among the game’s most highly regarded opinion-makers.
In the recently released list of the top 100 golf courses in the world published by authorized raters Golf magazine, Myopia has once again been ranked among the best not just in Massachusetts, New England or America, but on earth.
Golf magazine’s 2025-2026 list of the world’s best 100 layouts places Myopia No. 86. That’s a drop of nine places from its standing two years ago, but still very much beloved by the game’s cognoscenti in a world where there are 40,000 courses.
Golf Digest’s “America’s Greatest 100” spots Myopia at No. 54, an impressive position after ranking No. 67 in its 2023-24 ratings.
It’s an astounding validation of Myopia’s greatness among the Cypress Points, Pine Valleys and Augusta Nationals of the world, when it was only a few decades ago when Myopia was ignored in virtually all the acknowledged ratings of the best courses in America.
Myopia’s evolution into the category of one of the world’s most highly esteemed courses has been observed closely by Bill Safrin, whose 37-year tenure as its head professional ended in 2016.
“For several years after I came to Myopia from Philadelphia,” said Safrin, now based in Naples, Fla. where in a semi-retired status he runs a successful golf tour business, “Myopia had been recognized in the magazine’s ratings, but nowhere near as high as it should be.
“Then raters stopped coming to Myopia, seemingly because there was a perception Myopia was not cooperating with the raters, and maybe Myopia had lost interest somewhat in being included in the rankings process. As a result, Myopia lost its standing in the rankings for a period of time.”
Safrin relates this anecdote, which occurred while he served as Director of Golf at the exclusive Naples National in Florida.
“Paul Rudovsky, a Golf Digest panelist, member of The Country Club and one who has played the top 100 courses in the world, told me this fact of ratings life after completing 18 holes with me in 2014 at Naples National,” Safrin noted. “He said Myopia was unranked by Golf Digest because so few panelists were able to play the course. He thought the course was among the best he had played and deserved to be ranked.
“In the following few years, enough raters were able to become golfing guests of Myopia members that Myopia in no time became highly ranked in the periodic published ratings of several magazines, including Golf Digest.”
In effect, a certain number of well-regarded clubs changed their minds and wished to be back in the magazine ratings game, sucvh as Myopia.
Myopia has in the recent past been featured on the cover of several national golf magazines.
(Editor’s Note: Salem, which had been for decades listed on Golf Digest’s prestigious “100 Greatest Courses in America” since its feature was introduced to readers in the 1960s, lost its place in the rankings for a time and the six-time host of USGA championship now again welcomes raters to experience for themselves the dramatic upgrades the Donald Ross gem has undergone in the past decade.)
Myopia’s reputation as a top U.S. golf course was established soon after the course opened as a nine-holer in 1894. The club, best known in those days for its fox-hunting, entertained four of the first 14 U.S. Opens, the last in 1908.
Safrin recalled when Mike Davis, then CEO of the USGA, played Myopia for the first time with his dad in 2008. “Mike said, ‘This course is marvelous. Would Myopia consider hosting another major championship?’”
It would be the first since 1908.
Davis proceeded to write a letter of interest to the Myopia Golf Committee, Safrin related. The Committee politely declined Davis’s invitation to discuss the matter further. But in 2014, under the direction of Myopia President Chris Welles, the club initiated serious negotiations with the USGA regards hosting a USGA major. The USGA offered the U.S. Women’s Open, but the club passed on the opportunity.
No such discussions have occurred since then, a decade later.
A definitive measurement of Myopia’s desirable stature in recent years occurred when Salem hosted the 2017 U.S. Senior Open and later when The Country Club hosted the 2023 U.S. Open.
“I learned from my successor at Myopia, Mike Bemis, that he lost count early in both those years the seemingly endless number of inquiries he received in the pro shop from various golf constituencies who wanted to play Myopia while they were in the Boston area for those two Opens,” Safrin remembered.
The most prominent such inquiry/request took place prior to the 1999 Ryder Cup at The Country Club.
“Good friend Larry Dornisch, the long-time pro at Muirfield Village in Ohio and Lost Tree Club in North Palm Beach, asked me if he could bring two of his members to play Myopia,” Safrin remembered vividly. His ‘members’ were Jack Nicklaus and Greg Norman. I was happy to comply with Larry’s request.”
Course raters representing the two major golf magazines returned to Myopia and were allowed to play the course as long as they were accompanied by a member. In the process they also rediscovered nearby Essex County Club in Manchester By-the-Sea. Essex, along with Myopia are now regularly included in every “Top 100” list of U.S. courses.
“Myopia, for whatever other reasons, had been pushed in the background by the magazine raters,” Safrin observed. “The members did not mind. They did not seek attention for many years, but when the attention came, they embraced it.”
Now, as Safrin notes, “based on my golf tour travels, Myopia is known virtually around the world — and everyone wants to play Myopia. It’s now considered a ‘must play’ just like Cypress Point, Royal County Down, Muirfield, Pine Valley, Portrush, Merion and San Francisco, among others in the ‘highest stature’ category.”
Much of the credit goes not only to the club’s membership and grounds crew, led by course superintendent Jonathan Wilber, but also to architects Brian Silva and Gil Hanse and the Ben Crenshaw/Bill Coore team.
As Safrin recollects, “Coore-Crenshaw advised the club on restoration of the bunkers. They used backhoes to find the foundation of the bunkers, then rebuilt them, but never to their original depth; too deep for player today. They have installed stairs over the years to get out of many of the bunkers with the depth they are at now.”
Brian Silva taught the membership a lesson when he was hired to contour the Myopia fairways. The membership did not like the concept, so they bid Silva an appreciative farewell and returned the fairways to their original configuration.
The highly regarded Hanse has become the course’s designated architect spanning the last 20 years. His variety of subtle changes have given the course a special shine that has received, as already noted, universal approval.
“Myopia was a hidden gem for decades,” says Safrin. “Not anymore.”
(Editor’s Note: GolfWeek magazine, the other U.S. golf publication of strong repute, though only an online entity in 2025, ranks Myopia 34th – with Essex 43rd and Salem 91st– in its most recent list of the top “classic” courses in America built prior to 1960).