Playing Catch-Up on Some Wonderful New England Courses

Time to play catch-up. It’s been an excellent summer for golf with most courses having very good fairways and exceptional greens — at least until Irene came through. I’ve played locally for the past month and a half, saving money for upcoming trips to Cape Cod and Georgia. Within the past six weeks I’ve played four rounds in southern Massachusetts, four times in Connecticut and made three forays up to the Worcester area.

The two closest Massachusetts courses — St. Anne in Feeding Hills and Edgewood in Southwick — are a lot of fun and relatively inexpensive, in the $20 range for seniors who walk the course. Both have interesting layouts with a nice variety of holes and are in relatively decent shape. I enjoyed one of my better rounds at St. Anne, carding six pars and three bogeys on the front side for a nifty 39. Needless to say, the back nine was not as proficient but I still broke 85. If you haven’t tried either course, it’s worth the short drive north for an enjoyable and inexpensive round.

The Connecticut foursome ran the gamut from the great layout at Alling Memorial in New Haven, to the annoying Topstone in South Windsor with a pleasant round at Tunxis Plantation and the discovery of a newly available nine hole public course in Winsted. Topstone is always in great shape but the lack of architectural imagination bothers me. It’s an interesting layout but the placement of large bunkers in front of nearly every green gets tiresome and prevents any opportunity to run the ball up onto the green. Tunxis has 45 holes with an 18-hole Green course, an 18-hole White course and the Red 9. Always in great shape, this is probably the flattest course in the state and a good place to practice your game with wide fairways and very little water or bunkering.

If you haven’t played the Alling Memorial course, it’s worth the trip down to New Haven. Located in a less than inviting section of town that has improved markedly since my last visit five years ago, the walk from the parking lot past the pro shop reveals an unexpected wonderland of green hills, ponds, lush vegetation and a terrific layout. At the very reasonable price of $22 for a walking senior, this is a really fun layout. It’s challenging, interesting and a great walk in a parkland setting. The fourth and fifth are prime examples. The fourth is a par five of 474 yards requiring a drive over a marshland filled with waving reeds. The fairway rises abruptly along a sloping hill to a long, narrow fairway guarded by a deep bunker lined with long, shaggy grasses. Very challenging. The following hole is a short par four gem of only 231 yards where a drive in the fairway makes birdie a real possibility. The back nine is even more interesting with a lot of elevation changes and forced carries and a good score here has to be earned.

My find of the month is the nine-hole, recently gone public Green Woods Country Club in Winsted. Established in 1903, it opened to non-members four years ago and is a fun layout about 30 minutes from Simsbury. A great feature is its two alternative greens. The first hole is a short par four of only 326 yards with one green straight ahead at the end of the fairway and an alternate green 30 yards to the left, guarded by bunkers and recessed about 30 feet below the upper green. Even better is the fifth hole, which can be either a par four or five, depending on which fairway/green you play to. The fairway splits at about 180 yards. The par four version to the left is 418 yards, to the right it becomes a par five of 481 yards with the two fairways divided by a large stand of forest. The challenging eighth is a great short par three of only 150 yards over water to an elevated green. Two missed hits cost me a triple on this deceptively easy hole but Betsy and I enjoyed the course very much.

I unexpectedly added another new course to my growing list in mid-August when I played the Green Hill Municipal golf course in Worcester, MA. I thought I had previously played this course but discovered upon arriving that it was brand new to me. Course number 407. Very neat. For a muni, this was a very nice layout with wonderful greens and one of the steeper hills I’ve ever pulled a cart on. The front nine is built along the side of a large hill overlooking a gorgeous, mile-long lake shimmering in the sun. The course could easily be renamed the No Flat Lies Municipal golf course as every shot resulted in a lie that required either an uphill or downhill stance for the next shot. The front nine contained a bit too much parallel golf for me, with many holes playing opposite the previous one but the great weather and stunning views of the lake and downtown Worcester made it a delight. The back nine was much more interesting with some great elevation changes — the eleventh hole is a 198-yard stunner that drops some 100 feet — and a lot of uphill and downhill shots. The par five thirteenth fairway slants upward 482 yards to an elevated green and the 30 percent slope is a tiring pull that leaves you with little energy to pull off the required shots. Of course, all is forgiven on the next hole, a steeply downhill 385 yarder I was able to reach in two. Considering the price ($30 senior, walking) and the quality of the golf, it was a great way to spend the early afternoon.

In late August, my foursome took the hour and a half drive up to Northbridge, MA to play one of the best new courses in the country, the Shining Rock golf club, rated the 4th Best New Course in American in a 2010 issue of Golf Magazine. Alan and I played it last year and it was love at first bogey. The layout is terrific, the maintenance superb and the price quite reasonable for a course of this quality— under $50 mid-week. One of the things I enjoy most at Shining Rock is the number of short par fours, four of which are under 300 yards and two more under 350. It’s all about placement off the tee and having a solid short game. The signature hole, dubbed “The Rock”, is one of those, a 270-yard par four but a daunting sight from the tee box. The hole requires a carry of nearly 200 yards over an immense rock cliff to an elevated fairway. The first time I played here, both Alan and I hit three balls each and came nowhere near clearing the wall. I got lucky this time and was able to barely clear the monolith, leaving only some 50 yards to the recessed green and a par. That hole made my day!

A few days later, we were back in the Commonwealth, just east of Sturbridge to play the delightful Heritage Country Club. Very reasonably priced at $33 (including cart and lunch), this is a wonderful layout on a pretty hilly course with an interesting combination of challenging holes. Like Shining Rock, there are at least six par four holes under 350 yards so you don’t have to be a big hitter to score well but you do have to keep the ball in the short grass. We had another spectacular weather day and a terrific time on this very enjoyable layout.

Finally, last week my foursome traveled some 40 minutes just past Springfield to play the terrific Chicopee Country Club, a Geoffrey Cornish design dating from 1965. Oddly, though I’d played it several years ago, I had no recollection of any of the holes. Golfer’s dementia? For a municipal course, heck for any course, it was in great shape and unbelievably priced at $19. We sailed around the course with no one in front of us for most of the round and had a blast on this little gem playing just over 6,100 yards from the white tees. I had one of my better rounds of the year, shooting two 41s (including a double and a triple bogey) and can’t wait to go back and play this excellent layout again.

My next trip, coming up late September, will be my first golfing experience on Cape Cod. I’ll be staying with three friends in Falmouth and hopefully playing some of the better courses we can find, including Farm Neck on Martha’s Vineyard where I believe President Obama has played a few rounds while on vacation recently. Till then, keep swinging.