History of Bridgton Highlands Golf & Tennis Club

In 1925-26 Robert Braun, his lawyer, Eugene Bodge, and Dr. Angus Hebb, all of whom lived or had summer homes in Bridgton, contacted the noted golf course designer, A.W. Tillinghast, to design a course on Highland Ridge.

Tillinghast, noted for many famous courses, including Baltusrol, Winged Foot and Bethpage, designed a par 37, nine-hole course with a length of 3212 yards. The actual “hands on” work at Bridgton was done by Ralph Martin Barton, who also did the work at Tillinghast’s Mid-Ocean and Yale University golf courses.

In the 1980s, the prior owners hired Cornish and Silva to design and build two new holes (current holes #5 and #14) to replace the original 7th and 8th holes due to construction of 16 condominiums.

In 1992, 20 community-minded citizens purchased the nine-hole golf course at auction and immediately set about to expand it to an 18-hole layout using a design by Fred Ryan, one of the new owners. The new holes were intertwined with the original Tillinghast holes and those added by Cornish & Silva. The 18-hole layout, featuring four sets of tees, opened for play in 1994.