The weather’s been great hasn’t it? Played Saturday and Sunday night, Monday morning, Wednesday morning and afternoon, this morning, and tomorrow morning. My feet are killing me and my True Linkswear Original shoes came in today and are a size too small (my fault). Depressing.
If anyone wants to play Oak Hills Park in Norwalk, hit me up. I’m away for the next few weeks, but mid-July to the end of summer I’m around. The conditions are absolutely incredible. I played with a mini-tour pro this past Monday and he was blown away by the conditions of the greens.
Yeah I am like 90% sure that Cigna paid to develop the course. There is also that weird abandoned building that used to be a MetLife office that you can see on 8-9. Definitely not the best views on the course, but it’s always been in phenomenal shape.
Glad i bough those extra balls, started yanking my driver and put a few in the woods. Course was in good shape, especially the greens. They flipped the nines, rounds start on 10
Does anyone live on TPC River Highlands and is willing to invite me over this weekend?! I’m pretty normal. COVID negative as of 6/19! I can bring beer, meat, games, jokes, whatever you want!
Has anyone played Oxford Greens lately? I used to get out there once a year but I haven’t the last couple. Played with a guy last week that lives out that way and he said the course has run into financial troubles and was for sale, and that it was in pretty rough shape.
That’s too bad, I always enjoyed Oxford. I’d still wouldn’t mind supporting the course even though they fell on rough times but it is almost an hour commute for me. I can find a ton of better options worth the hour commute
I played Hotchkiss this morning for the first time. Went in wanting to love it, but it was pretty mediocre. The fairways were pretty baked out, but because there’s a decent amount of crabgrass, they were pretty long in some places - like they both don’t water and don’t mow them. The rough was similar. The tee boxes were terrible.
The greens looked like they could be really cool if they were a little faster. As is, all the wild mounds barely knock your ball offline because it was stimping about an 8.5.
I know the ninth hole got some play in the “Worse Golf Holes” thread, but at least that one offered some slight variation off the tee. Every single other par-4 or -5 was a driver to a massive wide fairway (no fairway bunkers in play).
I was also completely swarmed with bugs, which seemed strange for 11am.
On the plus side, it was $18 and a nice little walk. So, could be worse.
Let me start this by saying that it pains me to say something nice about Hotchkiss (I teach at Taft, and we are major rivals) I think your experience was likely fairly aberrant due to COVID-19.
There was no high school golf season this spring (all of our students went home for March break, and we taught them remotely all spring), and most staff at boarding schools have been furloughed, so there is a good chance that the course was minimally maintained this year. Add to that the lack of any summer programs at schools this year (which is another major income source) and they are almost certainly doing only minimum maintenance.
Assuming we have a real school year this coming year, I would come back next summer and try it out.
I can buy that to an extent for the fairways and possibly how the rough was maintained (it was not). The greens being so slow doesn’t really check with that though, since it was pretty clear they’ve been watering them constantly. The sand in the bunkers was also fine, but the borders of all the bunkers were poorly maintained, which seemed like a long-term sort of thing. (And the overall lack of fairway bunkering, or really any features surrounding the fairways, is more of a design issue.)
Those are good points though - I could see myself giving it another go in a more typical year.
Most of the bunkers there have been lost to time and/or a decreasing maintenance budget. As far as the conditioning, what you saw has been pretty standard in my experience there. They really only maintain the greens. I believe its the only public Seth Raynor design available so beggars (public golfers) can’t be choosers I guess
FYI the guy in the shed there has so SICK old pics of the original routing. I’ll try to post them here when I’m out there in August
Got around in an hour and ten minutes. It was in rough shape, but it was interesting. Crazy elevation changes, one hole was like 430 and I had maybe 50 yards in because of how downhill the tee shot was, and the final hole is an island green. Would I pay more than $12-15? No, but for the price, I had a good time.
Glad to hear! I’m always on the hunt for new places to play and game for ballin’ on a budget if that is the way it has to be. Occasionally I play a course down in Danbury called Sunset Hills which certainly isn’t going to ever be the best kept courses, but I always enjoy it and it meets the “budget” round criteria for sure.
Oxford is just down the road from me, their current owners actually just bought my club. Oxford gets hundreds of rounds a week lately, so the greens which are usually in great condition are quite beat up and with management focusing its attention on a new club and course it has lost some of its qualities.
