You might not be able to afford them every day, but when you do go, you almost always come away satisfied. Golf Digest has praised Shaker as the best new public course in New England and second best in the nation. The price includes a cart, so the fee is really only a couple of bucks more than what some lesser clubs charge. Attendants take your clubs from your car, put them on your cart, then clean your sticks when you're finished. The staff is friendly and seemingly everywhere.
Rangers keep play moving along.
There's even a welcome food stand that serves the plumpest hot dogs around after the ninth hole. After 18, there's the big yellow clubhouse, which opened in July and sits in Ayer. That's significant because most of the course is in Harvard, which doesn't allow alcohol. Ayer has no such laws. You don't make the 40-minute drive from Worcester for clean clubs and a chance to get a beer, though.