[Tim Gavrich]

I played Wintonbury Hills yesterday with a friend of mine.  The sun is on vacation from New England, and it had rained for the better part of four days, but fortunately, it was 'only' overcast, sans rain yesterday.  Anyway, I was amazed, as always, at the condition of the golf course.  The fairways were a bit soggy, but that's inescapable given the recent wet spell.  However, I was pleasantly confounded by the firmness and speed of the greens.  

WHGC's greens are easily the best-maintained of any sub-$100 greens fees golf courses I have ever played public course.  In addition, the mix of subtle and severe contours makes putting a lot of fun, with quite a few greens running from front to back.  When the fairways are firm and fast, it's a whole lot of fun.  The one element that I'd love to see added at some point would be some more chipping areas around some of the greens.  The two holes that would be really improved by this are #s 3 and 12, the two short par threes.  But for $20 for juniors, I'm not complaining.

Lastly, I loved the new tees on the three lengthened holes.  Hole 6 has increased from about 395 to 427.  The approach shot is more demanding now.  I wish they'd bring those centerline bunkers into play off the tee!  Awesome greensite with a gigantic, 10-foot deep chipping area to the right.  The 7th has gone from 222 to 255 !!  It is now the most difficult hole on the golf course, I believe.  It now takes a driver down to the cape-style greensite.  Finally, the 9th is now 191 from the back, up from 170.  It fills some of the gap in par three differences, which have gone from (3, 7, 9, 12, 17) 163, 222, 170, 168, 230, to 163, 255, 191, 168, 230.

Sorry for the long-windedness, but if you're ever in the area, be sure to check Wintonbury out.  Lots of fun.

[Aaron Katz]

I've played WH three times.  Unfortunately I've played absolutely awful each time out, but it is a lot of fun.  It's a pretty straightforward course from the tee -- not a lot of diagonals, and only two semi blind tee shot (#16 and #5, depending on what you hit) -- but the green complexes are extremely thoughtfully designed, and the par 3's challenging (#7 pushes the envelope of too hard!).  I particularly like #9 and #16.  Even with the wet weather, you're right that the greens were running firm (my well struck sand wedge on Saturday had six feet of run out) and fast (what do you think, 11 on the stimp?).  The contours are really well done and several greens are fairly diabolical when the greens are running at top speed.  Incredible condition.  

Have you played Gilette Ridge or Oxford Greens?  I was thinking of giving one of those a try (I have no interest in Great River).

[Tim Bert]

I played at Wintonbury a couple of weeks ago while the CSGA was out there re-rating as it has been 3 years since the course opened.

They informed us that the greens were stimping at 10.5 that afternoon.

Aaron, I'd play Wintonbury about 20 times for every 1 that I venture on to Gillette Ridge.  That one every now and then would just be to re-affirm my feelings about the course.  You may feel differently if you are into eye-candy or extremely difficult (but not necessarily strategic) golf courses.  Ron Whitten seemed to like it better in his write up.

[Dan Herrmann]

Heck - Wintonbury Hills is better maintained than 95% of private clubs.

I found it to be a wonderful course that should grow in stature.  I'd love to see it get the Publinx.

[Brad Klein]

Actually, we turned down a U.S. Women's Amateur Publinx (I think that was the event) for 2008 because the event would have cost us a lot of money -- ten days of lost revenue in late June, at peak of season, plus operations expenses for the championship, only partially offset by some income. We were flattered by the offer at Wintonbury Hills from the USGA but reluctantly turned them down. P.S. Erin Hills got it instead.

[Dan_Callahan]

Aaron,

Gillette Ridge is as bad as it gets.

Oxford Greens is fantastic, with some of the best par 3s in New England. There were a few holes I didn't love, but that mostly had to do with the construction technique—in spots, the fairways are so built up that any miss rolls over the edge and into the woods. In some cases, the edges of the fairways seem to be halfway up the neighboring trees (much like the right side of Wintonbury's 16th). Otherwise, I would say that Oxford is every bit the equal of Wintonbury, with much more variety.

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