It's funny; now 31 years later, I've played, visited, talked about, studied and read over SO many of the great golf courses of the world. I work part-time at Winged Foot, snuck onto Augusta National, been a public speaker at places like Baltusrol and Sleepy Hollow and had so 100x many "champagne taste" experiences with the game and its great venues than my perpetual "beer pockets" could have ever dreamed...
But it all starts (and sorta ends) here for me...Sunset Hill, the scrubby goat pasture in Brookfield, Ct where I played my first actual round of golf in April 1982 at age 14. Brookfield was my hometown then and though I had been caddying for a season and hit many golf balls at a range and on the defunct "West" course of the Old Oaks Country Club, I had never played an actual round. My friend Joe, who's father belonged to to the former Lakeover Country Club in Bedford (now 180 degrees different as ultra bucks Glen Arbor) was a season or two ahead of me and suggested we played. I'd lived in Brookfield for three years at this point and didn't even know there was a golf course.
Sunset Hills is the kind of place that is joked about, laughed about, reviled by the "serious" golfers. I think most everyone who is on our board knows a place like it where they lived or grew up. Mention it and eyes roll, invective comes out and phrases like "goat hill" "shit hole" and worse come out. If it has any reputation, it is as a dangerous place, where the tight confines and instances of crossing play and blind targets make shouts of "Fore" a regular occurrence and some injuries a season-to-season report. That of course, was when golf options were fewer and farther between and the place saw 18-25,000 rounds a year. Now it almost a ghost town, except for some weekend play and Dusty Leagues on the occasional weeknight in the summer. I'd bet they barely reached 8,000 18 hole rounds in recent years.
The first picture was from a year ago, this one is the same perspective in late august 2010...(you can just about make out a topo from the green areas, the brownest of the turf is a slope of some sort)
And here is one with a line drawing, showing you the routing:
Par 35 2355 yards
#1 - Par 5 445 yards
#2 - Par 3 145 yards
#3 - Par 3 100 yards * range mat tee in use most of the time
#4 - Par 4 260 yards
#5 - Par 4 290 yards
#6 - Par 4 270 yards (also has a Par 3 tee which plays 185)
#7 - Par 5 430 yards
#8 - Par 4 275 yards
#9 - Par 3 125 yards * range mat tee in use 1/2 of the time.
Sunset does have something of unique history though. Many know Gene Sarazen's reputation as "the Country Squire." Wel lhe acquired that moniker, owing to his time (late 1930s - early 1950s) owning and living on a dairy farm in...Brookfield, CT. (Sarazen's home and farm is about 1 mile south of these first three photos on Whisconier Hill Road. My high school friend Stacy B. lived in the Sarazen farmhouse in those years [*she was Joe's prom date in 1985]) As you might have inferred, the thing called "sunset Hill" was Sarazen's rudimentary "practice course" for use in the months he was in Brookfield. Brookfield was truly "in the sticks" then and there wasn't a golf course for 15-20 miles. Sarazen's older Met haunts in Bridgeport and further Southwest in Westchester Co are about an hour away (probably 2.5 in those days) and so...there wasn't much in the way of the Squire's baileywick available, even to knock about for the odd pleasure. Most accounts say Sarzen happened upon a farmer's, John Urkiel (Urkiel family still owns the property) emptyish land and worked out an agreement to build a rudimentary course in an around this sharp and hilly property.
Sarazen's course was pretty much the same, with a few exceptions which I'll detail after you look at this photo - which is a legend for a some of the exploits over the links over time:
1. The crudely painted B at the bottom center is the area of the putting green (think large area rug) where Brookfield High used to assemble for our home matches. Our coach, and HS business teacher, Bob Sweeney used to bet us on chips, pitches and putts and con us out of our precious silver treasury then. All members of the team owed Sweeney cartons of orange juice the next day, sometimes a full-on slice of pizza. Now the modern kids complains about it, but back then we loved it and knew it was the single greatest home course advantage in the whole state. Everyone hated it, complained about it, and rued themselves right into huge scores, because it is so impossible to score well.
2 The White circle, near the 2nd green in the top right center of the photo is where, on that first April '82 round, I made my very first birdie...putting from over 10 yards right of the green. Yes, I putted through several yards of clover onto a few yards of green and right in for a 2 on the 2nd official hole I ever played...I looked at Joe as if I had done something wrong...asking, "Is that a birdie?" When he confirmed it ruefully...I shouted over the hills and dales "Birdie" and like the proverbial trout...was hooked forever more. BTW: Joe has never been "even" with me again...poor fellow.
My god, we had NO idea what we were doing...we hit 3-irons for just about every shot. Look at the next hole the drop-shot 100 yard par 3 third. It tumbles about 35 feet over its 98 yards (off a driving mat). We both blistered our traditional 3-irons sailing over the green, the woods and a few Ct towns and looked at each other after each hit, commenting: "I guess that's what these other clubs are for." Those balls are still in flight. The Green square to the left of that green (top right corner) is a spot we lovingly refer to as "the Magnet." So many rounds, you couldn't help but pull the shot into a grassy meadow.
3. the two blue circles in the area of the approach and 1st Green...the one labeled 1960 shows an area that was not part of the Sarazen course and didn't come into the picture until well after the Squire was not a local. HIS first green was a rough Punchbowl at the extreme blind bottom of the first fairway (blue circle with #1). You can still see the last archaeological vestiges of it today but it is more commonly the area where many golfers play their 90 yard third shots for the current 1st green
4. I failed to mark-up that corner property that is between the 4th green and top of the 1st fairway...that is where Cujo lived. Because of its locations, that private property was a hot spot for pushes or sliced second shots off #1 and hooked approaches on #4. Golf balls were at an absolute premium then and though you never saw him, as soon as your foot crossed the stone wall onto that parcel, out he came - from a different and unexpected place every time...jaws snapping, fiercesome barks and many was the time that me and my golfing companions were seen crashing back through the woods in a somersault or dive. once in a while you were able to get your ball.
Also not noted on this legend is back by the 4th tee...Tees were ALSO at a premium back then and one time, Joe and I were stuck after finishing 3 without a tee between us. The teeing grounds at Sunset are absolute hardpan, and you had to hammer in a tee with the heel of your long irons. A tee was an absolute necessity. so we started hunting around, but for 10, 20 minutes NOTHING...then a single golfer came down the third, some business man with black socks and wheeling a pull cart. He barely said two words to us...and we were too socially intimadated as youths to ask him for one. He putted out on #3, walked to #4 and hit an trudged up the 4th fairway (THE steepest hill on the course). It was few moments before we realized that he left his tee i nthe ground...we both lovingly cleaned it up and used it for our shots...we still refer to the anonymous stranger as "Tee Man" and associate mythic value with his unwitting gift.
4. the two (2) lime green "Xs" indicate where drives might go on #1 (Before the horrible stand of seven pines were planted between #1 and #5 in the mid 1990s. ) When its really baked out, you can hook a ball that will tumble almost all the way to #7 (the left most lime green X)
Here's a 1991 aerial that shows the area without the pines. It's the same North orientated perspective of the first three photos.
5. The RED/BLUE X o nthe 5th fairway shows the place where I came the closest to death in the mid-1980s...that portion is on a broad flat hill top... I was playing #1 heading to the top of the photo. Between me and my target is a deep valley (where the Sararzen #1 green was) It must be 40 feet bellow you and completely blind to that which might be coming up the hill, playing to 5. A golfer must have dribbled off the fifth tee and was playing his second when I heard a faint "fore" from down in the sunken valley...as I gathered my wits, I saw an orange Wilson Staff bee-lining for my chin...it was so immediate, my only reaction was to "limbo" backwards and the ball tickled my nostril hairs. When the would-be assassin came up and over, he asked if I'd seen it. I said with a great deal of maturity..."Orange wilson? right over there...nice shot"
6. the blue Line/Bar in front of the sixth green indicates that instead of that little stagnant bog that sits there now the thing that guarded the 6th green was a little stream with two culverts for access and entry.
7. the dotted yellow lines are merely indicators of where you have to cross fairways to get to another hole.
8. There's only one bunker on the course now. It is a mean little pottie, 30 yards short of the uphill 8th hole. The 1991 photo shows you that even its "heyday" there were only four (4)...short left of the 1st green, short right of the 9th and behind the right of the 7th. then as now (even though there's only one extant) ANY time you were in a sunset bunker, it was perdition. That remaining one on #8 is worthy of St. Andrews. We never gave it a name, however. Perhaps I will someday.
Well I'll concludes this "tour" (nothing of the sort really) by saying that despite all the many great places, and first class finery and treasured experiences of my life in Golf, this is my field of dreams. the hours of quiet pleasure this place afforded me over the last 31 years are a treasure that can't ever be replicated or replaced. I've chosen not to speak of any architectural values or features even though Sunset is loaded with shots and conditions that would absolutely beguile the games elite players...the greens are the size of your living room, they have more crazy pitches and contours than can ever be countenanced...thank god they are cut at the truest 6.5 you've ever played.
Time has stood stock still at Sunset. In my day juniors played ALL DAY (as many holes as you can get in) for $4.50...fountain sodas were fifty cents. Today it's only slightly more expensive $16.00 for 9, $24.00 for 18, $3.00 beers. Like I imagine those first hickory pioneers in Scotland, you make the course on the land...its laid out, but you are the real designer.
What a place!
cheers
vk