Minnechaug Golf Course

Pefect setting for my son and I who are beginner golfers.

Great layout….terrific staff….I play there several times a week and usually bring nonmember friends.

Made it to the second hole before a thunderstorm came. The girl working the pro shop came and got us and even got us a refund! They’re great. I’ll be back to finish my round for sure

Fun course with wife and daughter on a Sunday afternoon.

Very friendly people but not worth the price. It’s a mediocre course but they treat it as if you need to be a top notch player. Extremely rushed. Definitely profiled since the first hole being that everyone else was white.

Fairways and greens are in great shape....tee boxes are not. Need more trash cans on the course.

Having played Minnechaug many times, I’ve come to find three key reasons I like playing this track:

A) Woodland setting. Trees create corridors to encourage well-struck tee shots; drives that land on fairway strips between the trees feel invigorating.
B) Putting the greens, which are quick, subtle, and of all sizes--never a bore at Minnechaug.
C) The finality of the island green: it’s either sink or find dry land. When my tee shot does find the turf, the sense of relief is palpable. A missed tee shot may slip as silently into the water as the geese do on “Island Green” pond. Realistically, par then dies an instant death (and maybe a nice score is marred, or even shot to pieces.)

My playing experience today (putting, driving, island green) was good, my round enjoyable.

PLAYING CONSIDERATIONS What’s foremost at Minnechaug is the recovery of its course conditions. The groundskeeping staff is building upon improvements made last fall, and now they’re coming to fruition, most notably on the fairways. While they’ve not yet succeeded in spades in this effort, fairways one, five and seven have made incredible progress. That leaves two, three and four, which are patchy somewhat in their landing zones, but the fourth has made the biggest leap forward. The greens were excellent, though areas around them are still lagging a bit. Tees were good. Credit Minnechaug with a big turnaround, overall, from last summer’s wretched weather woes and a week-long power outage.

Because this course endures heavy play, it is susceptible to a slow pace. Today I found the reaction of the Course Marshal, John G., exceptional when the threat was present. His actions, helpful and proactive both, encompassed the close monitoring of groups on the course, asking questions about pace (in a friendly, non-threatening way), and helping players find hard-to-spot resting places of their golf balls. And if all that wasn’t enough, how about offering walkers rides from the seventh green to the eighth tee? If every course had marshals this good, a good deal of unnecessary stress would disappear from daily play.

YOUTH MOVEMENT: At Minnechaug, one of the impressive things I see continually is the attention paid to young players, who are a mainstay here and, of course, part of the lifeblood of the game. One of many teens on the course today was one of my playing partners, Mike, seen in one of the photos. He is quite a putter (our foursome also included his father Jim and another pleasant player named Owen).

Minnechaug’s youth movement has gravitated toward strong support of several high school teams: The Glastonbury JV girls and JV boys; the East Catholic girls, both varsity and JV squads. The course Manager, Mr. Rick Carnelli, told me that there are some 175 players involved in the club’s Junior Program. I happened to witness a clinic out on the first hole last fall. Last year one of the Junior players, an eight-year-old named Tyler Bradway, scored an ace during play. Now that’s a kid with a flair for the dramatic.