What about Hotchkiss...

[JakaB]

Has anyone played it and how true to Raynor does it remain...I don't know how far out in the boonies it is...but if it is anywhere near a city it has to be one of the great values in American golf....Family membership <$500/year..

[Mike_Sweeney]

It is the one course I have over Ward, Cirba, Redanman and Geoffrey. You ain't getting nothin from me on Hotchkiss. People need to do "The Heavy Lifting" themselves.  

[JakaB]

Hotchkiss must be a perfect example of how private access and comps lead people to all the same places....here you have a Raynor that is public and costs $20 for 18 holes and none of the regulars take the time to go.....Sweeney...if you do anything next year for the good of golf you need to get more people to Hotchkiss and fewer to Winged Foot....I'd love to see a $20 Raynor in the Golfweek Classic list...it would do everybody good..

[john_stiles]

Played the 9 hole Hotchkiss three times in my pre-GCA days (very early 1980s).   In those days, I was much more interested in stopping by the Lime Rock track to see where the IMSA crowd raced.

The course was fun to play, never crowded on the weekends I played in the fall.  The drive from White Plains was not short but it made for a very enjoyable day, driving up, playing, sitting down for a picnic lunch.

Played the course only in the fall when the entire northwest corner of Connecticut is beautiful around Lakeville.

We seemed to always play on a busy fall weekend and either catch the pre-college bulldogs having their cross country track meets around the golf course or their dads would be having an antique car show, driving up and down and about the campus.

I still have some memories of the golf there,  remember 5 or 6 holes, although I cannot remember any specifics of the greens or bunkers or other items of the GCA as it relates to Raynor.  

There was a prior thread about Hotchkiss and the more recent work on the course.  Need to track that thread down and get back here.

Hope to play there again.

[JakaB]

The BBGE will pay the greenfees and include a $5 lunch stipend for the first member of GCA who plays Hotchkiss and reports on the course.....Please IM me when you plan to play and we will make all the necessary arrangements with their most capable staff....I called the clubhouse today but they must be taking a holiday...it is Monday afterall...

[ANTHONYPIOPPI]

Very cool golf course. George Bahto has done some work there regrading one fairway and rebuilding one green. The school - like big sister Yale - never really paid attention to the golf course. As a  result, greens were rebuilt, parts of holes were lost to building expansions and maintenance was not a priority.

The original parts of the course are spectacular. A few of the greens are as good as any Raynor I've ever played including Yale. Also, because of a nearby lake the school uses no pesticides, thus there are varieties of plants growing on fairways that are not of the grass species. For those of you who like your turf manicured and perfect, save yourself the long drive, you'll be greatly disappointed having to hit out of patches of clover.

For those who love Raynor and Banks and for whom the perfect lie is not needed, make the trip. The head pro is Jim Kennedy who has posted here.

[Jim_Kennedy]

John,
We've been taking a "holiday" since Nov. 1st, the day we close.

It's +5 degrees today in NW Ct., with wind and 2 inches of snow.

[JakaB]

This showed up on my computer....it is too valuable for my eyes only....

John,
Thanks for the interest.

The course is a wonderful place to play. It's relatively quiet, especially on the weekdays. We're a little over 2 hours from NYC, 3+ from Boston, 1 1/2 from Albany and 1 hr from Hartford or Poughkeepsie.

The routing is fairly intact although #8, a downhill 3 with a green whose back 1/4 is 5' higher than the front 3/4's was originally the 1st. Now our 1st is a 410, slighly uphill par 4 with a two-tiered green that drops off severally(10') on its right side, almost a cape style.

#2 was originally a Leven but has recently become a par 3 due to a building project. It still has the big mound in front and the punchbowl green is intersected by a spine emanating from the mound.

#3 is an Alps. One of the fronting bunkers was removed but we hope it will be restored. Two ridges bisect the green from side to side making for some interesting putting, especially due to the blind approach.

#4 fwy was been moved to the right in 1980 and it led to an Eden style green. More construction forced the green to be moved to the right, making for a slight dogleg approach. This is the only hole that has fwy bunkers although the original plan showed a few more. George Bahto built a new green for this hole, adapting a plan of Banks' that he found while researching his book.

#5 is a downhill Short. Most of the bunkering was removed but there is some chance that it will be restored due to drainage problems in the front of the green.

#6 fwy has been recently moved to the right a bit making this hole a slight dogleg left. The green has 3 distinct sections and 3 putts here are common. George spent several hours putting this green when he was here.

#7 is a straightaway, uphill par 5. Most guys can get home in two nowadays. The green looks easy and slightly bowl shaped but there are some subtle, and not so subtle, breaks in it. Banks built this green when he was back doing some work.

#9 was a par 4 road hole when Banks came back to do some work(1930?). He created more of a dogleg right by putting tees way up on a hill. The fwy sits a good 50' below the tee. You can still cut the trees on the corner and have a go at the green in two but any misses on this hole are costly. There have been many double digit scores on this hole as well as birdies.      

The greens are mostly true to their origins, or so George believes. They aren't too fast, averaging 8/9 or so. The fwys aren't watered but we have gotten a lot of rain the past several seasons and the old grasses do a good job of choking out the weeds under these conditions.

[mark chalfant]

Nice routing around a picturesque campus. Several nice greens
and nice terrain. #1 is a splendid uphill hole (420yd)  over wrinkled
ground.Five and #8 are neat dropping par threes.Six (358yd) has a
remarkable green that would make both  Travis and Perry Maxwell jealous. Jim Kennedy always extends a warm welcome.
Scenic and peaceful !

[michael j fay]

I venture to Hotchkiss about every other year. The course is funky due to the buildings and the renovations. Some of the holes have seen some better times.

That being said the sixth green at Hotchkiss is worth the trip to Lakeville all by itself. It is nearly impossible to explain other than to say it has a wave in it and if you are on the wrong side of the wave you have better driven the green if you are going to make par.

There isn't much in northwestern Connecticut, but if you are within 75 miles make the trip.

[George_Bahto]

I have been fortunate to have been working with the Hotchkiss admin on upgrading the course - thanks to the efforts of their pro Jim Kennedy who has been the driving force.

The course makes you feel like you’ve taken a step back in time, which is very refreshing.

Irrigation?  Forget it - the ball bounds all over the place especially on the opening hole. A slight lack of rain and the whole place turns a beautiful color of tan, mixed with patches of green.

Things move slow at the school, where like Yale, the course seems to take the most rear seat in the “classroom.” It is treated exactly as intended (again like Yale), a recreational facility for the students faculty and some locals.

Funny because they can spend lot of money ion other projects.

It wouldn’t take that much to restore this course properly .

The school is in the middle of a huge building expansion program and this is where the fucus (and $$) is centered.

The 4th green was a leftover from the old course that Raynor was asked to “live with” - talk about funky - a great place to practice big sweeping putts (even at slow speeds) - 7 to 8 degrees tilt in many places. The building expansion nearby is now too close to old #4 green and I was asked to build a new green for the hole, a hogback green where I used a basic hogback style rather than duplicating one of the many hogback greens of “their’s” I have seen.

The 6th green they have been talking about is a hoot. “A wave” is a good description of a part of that green - spent a lot of time putting on that green while “living” there  (often with their wrong-handed, lefty pro, the aforementioned Jim K - a great sticker of the ball, by the way).

We raised the 2nd-shot landing area of the 9th hole (Road hole green complex). The fairway was severely tilted toward the lake - now at least it will hold a shot.

I so much want to get to the restoration of the 9th green complex - gettin’ older by the day, though.

Hopefully we will get it going and perhaps find a godfather with pockets he would be willing to open up - that would really solve it.

Anyhow, great place, great admin.

gb

[Buck Wolter]

Here are some suspects, a $400 Million endowment would seem to thro off enough cash to spruce up a 9-holer!:

Henry Ford II, Edsel Ford, and current Ford CEO Bill Ford all attended this school, which is located in a woodland setting with two lakes on the grounds. The school is rooted in classical education and offers more than 225 different classes in a 6-day school week. The endowment is among the richest in private schools: nearly $400 million. Time Magazine's Henry Luce also went here--on scholarship. Other notables include renaissance man Peter Matthiessen, Robert Bork, Forest Mars of M&Ms fame, Wlater Chrysler, Charles Edison (of NJ), and Ambassador Clark "Sandy" Randt. One Hotchkiss alum wrote to tell of other Hotchkiss notables: poet Archibald MacLeish, Justice Potter Stewart, businessman Arthur Kittredge Watson, actress Allison Janney, Paul Nitze, Henry Lewis Lapham II, John Henry Hammond, Jr., and baseball commissioner Francis Thomas Vincent. Others: CIA head Porter Goss, Herbert Dow, Gustav Fleischmann of yeast fame, David Gimbel, financier Franklin Gould, Thomas Remington, Charles Chubb, Paul Converse, George Mead of paper fame, and still others. Hotchkiss alumni are called "Kissies."

[Tags:]

Tags: