Bulle Rock: Golf in Havre de Grace, Maryland

Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport (BWI) is the nearest major airport, and the road route measures 44.8 miles: I-195, MD 295, I-895, I-95, MD 22 and US 40, then Blenheim Farm Lane, the course's own access road. Philadelphia International Airport (PHL) is the other option at 59.8 miles, by I-95, I-495, I-95/US 202, I-95, MD 222 and US 40. In town, Havre de Grace City Hall on Pennington Avenue is 3.2 miles from the course by road. The course's postal address is 320 Blenheim Lane, P.O. Box 506, Havre de Grace, MD 21078, and its telephone number is (410) 939-8887. Reaching the second course means crossing the Susquehanna: Furnace Bay, in Perryville, is 7.2 miles by road, over US 40, Coudon Boulevard, MD 7 Principio Furnace Road and Chesapeake View. Furnace Bay's own directions describe that approach and name the toll: "Cross the Hatem Memorial Bridge. After you go through the toll turn Right at second traffic light (Coudon Blvd). Continue on Coudon Blvd to next left (MD 7 East). Follow MD 7 East about another 3/4 mile and the golf course's stone pillar entrance will be on the Right." Two other courses in the area, for orientation rather than as recommendations: Mountain Branch in Joppa is 17.7 road miles from Bulle Rock, and Whiskey Creek in Ijamsville — fifteenth on the same Golf Digest list — is 81.9.

Pete Dye designed Bulle Rock, and Golf Digest's ranking prose describes a "bold design" that "spreads over 275 acres, with no homesites or amenities other than golf." It opened in 1998: Wikipedia records the year, Golf Digest names it "America's Best New Upscale Public Course of 1998," and the operator's own rate card carries the line "#1 Daily Fee Course in Maryland (1998-Present)." The scorecard the course prints itself reproduces Dye's signature beneath the line "I did not undo God's work." That card is par 72, 36 out and 36 in, with the Black tees at 7,375 yards; Gold 6,925, Blue 6,410, White 6,055, Green 5,507, Red 5,320 and Teal 4,133. Matt Summers is Director of Golf (PGA) and Denny Leischner is Superintendent, and the card states "USGA Rules Govern All Play."

Three sources give three different course-rating and slope figures for the Black tees, and this guide does not pick one. The operator's own scorecard, print-stamped 06/2025, gives 75.6/146. Golf Digest's course page gives slope 147. Wikipedia's infobox gives 76.6/148, cited to a USGA database retrieval dated August 2, 2014.

The competitive record is the LPGA Championship — a women's major — from 2005 through 2009, which Golf Digest, Wikipedia and the operator's rate card all state. The rate card adds "Host of the 2024 & 2025 NCAA Women's BIG10 Championships," and the operator's page for those events names Oregon as the 2025 champions and Indiana as the 2024 champions. Neither the rate card nor that page names a later edition.

Two things about the course are unsettled and are left that way here. Golf Digest says it is named for "a direct descendant of the very first thoroughbred stud brought to America"; Wikipedia's lead says it is named for "Bulle Rock, the first thoroughbred racehorse brought to America." Those are materially different claims. And a reading of the Wikipedia list of National Register of Historic Places listings in Harford County — 79 named listings — turned up neither "Bulle Rock" nor "Blenheim," so no protected status is claimed here for the course or for the Blenheim Farm land it was built on.

One note on sources, because it will otherwise send a reader to the wrong place. Golf Digest's course page lists the course's website as bullerockgolf.com. That domain is not the golf course — it serves an unrelated golf-equipment review site, with no mention of Havre de Grace or Pete Dye anywhere on it. The operator's own site is bullerockgc.com, which is the address printed on the course's scorecard.

Golf Digest labels the ninth entry "Public," and its course page reads "Facility Type Public." The operator says the same in its own words: the home page opens "Welcome to Bulle Rock Golf Course, the top-ranked daily fee course in Maryland," and the about page reads "Open to the public daily, Bulle Rock also offers Golf Membership Packages to fit the budget of any frequent player." Memberships do exist — Full Golf, Associate, a Military & First Responders tier and a $650 driving-range membership — but they sit alongside the daily-fee product rather than gating it.

The booking system states it too, and that is the strongest form of the claim. Tee times run through foreUP on teesheet 2598, which declares exactly three booking classes: "Daily Fee Player | 14 Days," "Full Member | 30 Days" and "Associate Member | 30 Days." The booking page's own welcome message reads: "Thank you for choosing BULLE ROCK GOLF COURSE, Maryland's top-rated daily fee facility! The course is open to the public (daily fee) every day and offers a limited number of 'Full Memberships' along with our 'Associate Membership' frequent player program. The general public can book tee times 14 days in advance. All members may book tee times 30 days in advance." Queried on the Daily Fee Player class on 6 September 2026, that sheet returned bookable 18-hole rounds on eleven of the twelve dates inside its own fourteen-day window, ranging from twelve to thirty-nine slots on a date.

The twelfth date is worth knowing about. On the same query, 16 September 2026 offered nothing before 17:00 and 17 September 2026 returned no public inventory at all, while 18 September 2026 was back to thirty-eight slots from 08:00. The operator publishes no calendar, no news page and no populated tournament schedule, so nothing on the website explains that gap; the booking system is the only place a visitor can see it.

Green fees come from the operator's own rate card, which dates itself in its heading: "2026 Rate Schedule." The traveller's column is "Daily Fee" — "Resident" refers to the adjoining Bulle Rock residential community and "Associate" is a membership tier. For 2026 the Daily Fee rate is $75 from January 1 to March 5; $85 from March 6 to April 2; $99 Monday to Thursday and $124 Friday to Sunday from April 3 to November 15; $85 from November 16 to December 13; and $75 from December 14 to December 31. Twilight is $80 on weekdays and $95 at weekends inside the April 3 – November 15 window, with twilight times Monday to Sunday from 3:00PM between April 3 and October 31. Junior rates for 15 and under run April 3 – November 15: $80 Monday to Thursday anytime, $95 Friday to Sunday after 1:00PM. The card lists 5/25 Memorial Day, 7/4 July 4th, 9/7 Labor Day and 10/12 Columbus Day as weekend/holiday rates, and states that all rates "Include Greens Fees With Cart And Practice Balls Prior To Play." The rates page adds: "Bulle Rock Golf Course is subject to a 5% Admission & Amusement Tax imposed by the city of Havre de Grace. The A&A Tax is NOT included in the posted rates and will be added to all golf fees at the time of check-in or play." The fees the booking system quoted on the dates queried — 99 and 80 Monday to Thursday, 124 and 95 Friday to Sunday, and 124 and 95 on Labor Day, 7 September 2026 — reconcile with that card exactly, holiday included.

The nearest other course a visitor can simply turn up and play is Furnace Bay Golf Course, 79 Chesapeake View Road, Perryville — 7.2 miles by road from Bulle Rock, across the Susquehanna and in Cecil County rather than Harford. It was chosen on that road distance and on nothing else. The candidate set was every golf course OpenStreetMap knows within 60 km of Bulle Rock, 89 of them, each one routed for road miles and placed by the Census geocoder before any was ruled out. Two courses sit closer and neither can be booked by a visitor: Wetlands Golf Course, 6.2 miles, has no working website and its still-deployed booking record returned zero available tee times on every date queried across two months; Ruggles Golf Course, 6.7 miles, is inside Aberdeen Proving Ground, and the governing policy its own site links limits eligible patrons to "active duty Military Personnel (to include Guard and Reserve) and Families, Department of Defense Civilian Employees, Retirees, Veterans awarded the Purple Heart, Veterans who are Medal of Honor recipients, Veterans who are former prisoners of war and Veterans with service-connected disabilities." Whiskey Creek, fifteenth on the same Golf Digest list, is 81.9 road miles away, and a ranking does not promote a course into this slot.

Furnace Bay states its own terms on three separate pages: "Located in historic Perryville MD, Furnace Bay Golf Course is an 18-hole, daily fee, public facility. Affordable 9-hole or 18-hole rates available. The course was first opened in May of 2000. … With Bent grass from tee box to green you'd be hard pressed to find a more enjoyable or affordable round anywhere… Furnace Bay is a non-penetrating spike facility. Walk or rent a golf cart." The page title reads "Furnace Bay Golf in Maryland - Affordable Public Golf Course" and the footer on every page reads "Cecil County Public Golf Course." There is no membership product anywhere on the site — no member area, no login, no dues. There is also no online booking of any kind; no tee-sheet provider appears on any page, so a tee time is arranged by telephone with the pro shop on 410-642-6816. That is a weaker proof of public access than Bulle Rock's, where the booking system was actually executed, and it is worth saying so rather than levelling the two up.

The card is par 72, 36 out and 36 in: Blue 6,335 yards rated 71.4/130, White 5,834 at 68.8/128, Gold 5,407 at 66.8/121 and Red 4,857 at 67.7/114. Its rules include "USGA Rules govern play," "Proper golf attire required," "All players must report to starter before teeing off" and "Environmentally sensitive areas on course - stay out." No architect credit for the course was found on the operator's site or anywhere else consulted, and none is invented here. Shelby Haley is General Manager, Diane McBride is Pro Shop Manager and Randy Neff is Superintendent.

Green fees carry the operator's own dated heading, "Furnace Bay Summer Rates 2026": 18 holes weekday $32.00 walking and $49.00 riding; 18 holes weekend $40.00 and $60.00; 9 holes weekday $20.00 and $35.00; 9 holes weekend $30.00 and $42.00; seniors 18 holes weekday $22.00 and $39.00; seniors 9 holes weekday $17.00 and $31.00; twilight from 4PM $20.00 and $28.00 walking, $40.00 and $46.00 riding. Range balls are $12.00, $10.00 medium and $8.00 small. The card adds "Prices subject to change without notice."

The contact page states "We are now open for the 2026 Season! Stop by or give us a call!" and the home page adds "Our Clubhouse is open all year. Enjoy a driving range, practice green, and snack bar," with hours of 7:00am - 7:00pm and the snack bar 9:00am - 5:00pm. The site carries no aeration notice, no maintenance notice and no dated statement of any winter arrangement at all, so a player planning a December or January round should telephone the pro shop. The course also runs a Tuesday night 9-hole league in four-man teams and Thursday senior leagues; it publishes no times for either and directs enquiries to the pro shop.

Havre de Grace sits where the Susquehanna meets the Chesapeake, and the first place to eat after a round is on the property: the Gourmet Pub & Grill at Bulle Rock, open Monday through Saturday 11AM – 10PM and Sunday 11AM – 7PM, with the kitchen closing one hour before the posted time. The operator describes "indoor and terrace seating overlooking the golf course" alongside "our formal dining space if you prefer a more intimate setting," and credits Chef Derek Bergman's menu of "casual fare coupled with upscale entrée selections."

For lodging, the Vandiver Inn at 301 South Union Avenue is a boutique property in the historic town, made up of "the Historic Vandiver Mansion itself, the adjacent Kent & Murphy Houses, the year-round Pavilion, and our beautiful Gardens area" — 3.2 miles from the course by MD 7 and US 40. Carry the inn's own caveat into the booking: "Due to the Vandiver being such a highly social space--hosting weddings, private events, etc--we may not be for everyone." One warning about names: bullerock.com, without the gc, is the residential community beside the course — single-family homes, villas and condominiums with a 37,000-square-foot Residents' Club — and is not lodging.

In town, MacGregor's Restaurant at 331 St. John Street has been "serving upscale-casual American and Fish-Focused Fare" since 1987, on the Susquehanna waterfront, and states it is "Open everyday | 365 days a year." Coakley's Pub, established in 1997 by lifelong Havre de Gracian Margie Coakley, keeps three bars and five dining rooms and is known for its "award winning cream of crab soup and crab cakes." Its posted hours for The Cornerstone & Pub are Sunday, Monday, Wednesday and Thursday 9A-9P and Friday and Saturday 9A-10P, kitchen open 11A daily — and the store and restaurant are, in the operator's own capitals, "CLOSED ON TUESDAYS," which is worth building a weekday itinerary around.