If you've tried to book a Saturday morning at George Wright and watched every slot disappear before you could click one, you weren't too slow. You were in the wrong booking window.
The City of Boston runs a two-tier tee time system for its two municipal courses: George Wright in Hyde Park and William J. Devine at Franklin Park. Permit holders get first access. Everyone else gets what's left. Once you understand how the tiers work and when each window opens, the whole thing becomes predictable. Still competitive, but at least you know what you're up against.
The two tiers
Permit holders book five days in advance, starting at 7 AM. For a Saturday tee time, that's Monday at 7 AM.
Non-permit holders book four days out, also at 7 AM. For Saturday, that's Tuesday at 7 AM.
One day separates the two groups. On a course as popular as George Wright — Golf.com ranked it 3rd best municipal in the country in 2021 — that 24-hour gap is the whole game. Permit holders clear out the prime morning slots before non-permit holders can see them.
This is why you look on Tuesday and find 7:44 AM already gone.
What the permit actually is
The Boston Parks season permit buys unlimited green fees at George Wright and William J. Devine, plus a booking edge over the general public. It is not cheap, and it is not the $50-ish city card people assume it is. The 2026 individual permit is $1,700 for a Boston resident and $2,750 for a non-resident. Seniors 65 and over pay $1,400 and $2,050. Juniors 17 and under pay $300. Carts and tournament play are excluded.
Do the math before you want one. A resident pays $46 to walk 18 on a weekday, so the permit needs roughly 37 rounds to pay for itself. That is a home-club commitment, not a nice-to-have. For most golfers the daily rate is the right call, and the booking window is the only reason to want the permit at all.
Getting one is not as simple as paying for it. For 2026, the application was renewals only, open to golfers who already held a 2025 permit, with an April 30 deadline — and 2026 sales are now closed. If you don't have one, you're waiting for the 2027 cycle. Permits run from purchase through February 28 of the following year, and they are non-transferable and non-refundable.
George Wright: why it's so hard to book
George Wright is a Donald Ross design from 1938. Ross lived nearby in Newton and was reportedly skeptical the site could even support a golf course — it was described at the time as “a mix of ledge and swamp.” Building it took 60,000 pounds of dynamite and more than a year of WPA labor. The finished product is a par-70 with a slope of 133. More than half the holes have blind approaches or real elevation change. Hole 12 drops sharply enough that locals use it for winter sledding.
It's one of the most interesting public tracks in New England. That's why it books out.
Rates for 2026: $46 for 18 holes on weekdays for Boston residents, $55 on weekends. Non-residents pay $61 weekdays and $70 weekends. For a Donald Ross course with a 133 slope and that history, those prices are low — which compounds the demand problem.
William J. Devine at Franklin Park
Same rules apply at Devine: same permit structure, same booking windows, same green fees. Devine opened in 1896 — second oldest municipal golf course in the country. It's in Dorchester, 4.4 miles from downtown, the closest 18-hole public course to the city center. Also a Ross layout.
Devine gets less press than George Wright, so weekend availability is somewhat better. But it's the same permit/non-permit split, so the same approach works.
7 AM Tuesday. This is what it looks like when the window opens.
How to actually get a tee time
For a Saturday or Sunday morning at George Wright without a permit, be at cityofbostongolf.com at 7:00 AM on Tuesday. Not 7:05. The best morning slots go in the first few minutes. The booking system opens the window to everyone at the same moment, and plenty of people are refreshing at the same time.
Late morning and afternoon weekend times are easier. If you're flexible on the start time, Tuesday is still your window, just with more remaining inventory.
Weekdays are a different story. You can usually find time with a day or two of notice, sometimes same-day. Singles can walk on during the week, which bypasses the online system entirely.
If you play George Wright or Devine often enough that $1,700 pencils out, watch for the permit application in the spring — renewals for the current season closed on April 30, and new applications open on the city's cycle rather than on demand. For everyone else, the honest advice is to skip it and get good at the 7 AM window instead.
What Carl does with this
Carl tracks the booking windows for both courses. When you text a request for George Wright or William J. Devine, Carl knows which tier applies and what's actually in the available window. If Saturday is gone, it checks Devine, checks what weekday slots exist, and tells you what's open. It doesn't just return “sold out” and stop.
The pro shop call matters here too. Both courses occasionally hold back inventory from the online system. If the website shows nothing for a Saturday morning, calling the pro shop directly sometimes surfaces times the platform doesn't list. Carl makes that call.
George Wright earns everything the rankings say about it. The booking situation is annoying, but it's learnable. Now you know the actual rules.