Hartford Golf Club

[RDecker]

I am planning a round the the prestigeous Conn. club next week and was wondering what people here think of it.  For a high end private Ross club there seems to be little info. about it on this site or in the various books I've perused.  What do folks think of it and what should I expect to find.

[ClarkW]

I remember the USGA Mid-Am being played there about 10 years ago and won by Spider Miller but remember very little about the course itself. I even went to college in Hartford but never had an opportunity to play there altho I've seen pictures of it somewhere. Perhaps a few too many trees?

[michael j fay]

It is a Ross, Cornish, Emmett, Gordon amalgamation with further diddling by RTJ, Stephen Kay and others.

Trees have been removed, greens have been rebuilt and trees have been added all in the past decade.

Hartford Golf Club has some wonderful golf holes and is really pretty pleasurable to play. There are 27 holes, try to play 1-18.

[John Blain]

RDecker,

I was fortunate enough to have played HGC in the '96 U. S. Mid Am. It's a nice, well maintained "parkland" style course that is easily walkable but perhaps a bit overrated.
It's a well - heeled club and a nice play to play and you could do a lot worse.

John

[Glen Rapoport]

RDecker,

The Archictecture Pedigree of HGC is as follows

Original Club NLE Alex Findlay 1909-1911
Donald Ross   1914 holes 4, 5, 14 and 15 and a practice hole behind #4 green
Devereaux Emmet 1921-1924  ( 14 holes north of Albany Ave and a NLE 9 hole short course)
 (1,2,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,...17, 18 and was not completed until 1927

Donald Ross 1946 completed designing the last 4 holes (? ) and designed an addtional 9 holes ( 27 hole routing exists in the Superintendants Office.

1955 Ross's last 4 holes open

1961 Third 9 opens

William Gordon 1965.....redesign of 9 and 10 and new practice range

R T Jones 1966....irrigation design

after that not sure who else had a hand in it...RTJ may have done some tee work

Stephen Kay....bunker work 1996 before the Mid AM

Currently....brand new Superintendent as of Jan 1....Jonathan Burke.....working hard
USGA 2008 Girls Junior Championship in July.....input from the USGA agronomists.....lots of trees have been removed, new tees leveled on 3, 7 and 13......aeration and top dressing of fairways to reduce compaction of clay based soil, recapture of green perimeters and squaring of tee boxes.  It has been a mild winter and the course is in very good shape early on.  I think you will be pleased.


Glen

[Pete Stankevich]

RDecker:
After Glen's report, not much is left to add about the design.
They just did an enormous clubhouse renovation that I believe is finished as well. 
I went to college across the street at the University of Hartford and played on the team with PGA Tour Players Jerry Kelly, Tim Petrovic, and Patrick Sheehan.  Our coach was a member there and we still couldn't get out on the golf course!
They did allow us to take our fall and spring team pictures on one of the greens however.
Michael Fay is right, lots of tinkering done there, but a very enjoyable place to play.

[Brad Klein]

Glen,

RTJ's irrigation design work in 1966 included that big pond between holes 5 & 14.

Overall, the most engaging stretch of holes at Hartford is surely holes 7-8, a 400-yard, dogleg left around a creek bed followed by a wonderful, slightly uphill, 225-yard par to a platform green and bunkers well short that help give lift to the shot.

For what it's worth, Hartford GC was ranked by Golf Digest in the mid-1960s among the top-200 courses in the country. I'm trying to find the original  list in my files, but the club was certainly highly regarded back then.

[ANTHONYPIOPPI]

I believe Al Zikorus did some work on the greens of the third nine.

The first nine to which Glen refers was on a completely different site, one that was in Hartford, hence the name.

The practice hole Glen mentions has been rated by the Connecticut State Golf Association and is utilized when one of the other holes is closed for work so it is, in reality, a 28-hole layout.

Anthony

[Chris Cupit]

I played there in the '96 Mid-Am and I do remember #7 and #8 being the best holes on the course.  I came to the 7th hole in great shape for match play (it was my 34th hole) and after a perfect drive I shanked an 8-iron OB   I did recover and birdie #8 and parred #9 to limp into match play but it was an embarassing moment to say the least.

I do remember a lot of talk about the Par 5 16th? and if that was supposed to be a great hole then I missed it.

I do remember the 18th green having an interesting dip in the middle and I thought it was a pretty big green that played small due to those undulations.  I liked 18.  Also, I think it was #14 or 15--a long par 4 bending slightly to the right with a pretty sever green that was interesting.

Other than that I don't remember anything that really stood out other than it was in perfect condition.  Oh yeah--they had a "barbecue" one night for us and all the Southern guys were looking forward to seeing what it was like--apparently "barbecue" up north means "grilling out" with hot dogs and hamburgers   It was a funny moment for the rednecks as there was no pig in sight! And no, we didn't show up in our Dickeys and barefoot

[Brad Klein]

Chris, it figures. You played it in, I caddied in it -- for Vinny Giles.

The real reason there no roast pig on the open BBQ is out out of deference to the other co-host club of that Mid-Am, Tumblebrook CC, just up the road.

[Chris Cupit]

Chris, it figures. You played it in, I caddied in it -- for Vinny Giles.

The real reason there no roast pig on the open BBQ is out out of deference to the other co-host club of that Mid-Am, Tumblebrook CC, just up the road.

Whoops--I feel like a jerk now.  I assumed Yankees just had a different view of what "barbecue" was. 

Was I close to the right hole on that reachable par 5 on the back?  What do you think of that hole?  Again, I didn't think it was bad I just didn't find it particualrly compelling either.

[RDecker]

Thanks for the insights guys.  Am hoping for good weather and a little good fortune with the sticks.  will follow up after.

[Brad Klein]

The par-5s at HGC are not its most distinctive element -- 4/9/10/16 on the main course. The par-3s are very strong and the par-4s 2/7/13 are really great holes. Since no one at the club can tell you which hole numbers are which on the third nine, I won't try either -- another reason clubs with 3 9-hole loops share do never get their money's worth, so to speak. There's one par-5 out there in the middle.

HGC's short par-5 16th plays uphill, can't be more than 490 yards, I would think, climbs about 20 feet, but reachable with a long drive that skirts the left fairway bunker. Main defense is a green well-bunkered left and right and a lot of contour to the green from the left side.

[SPDB]

Brad:
It's funny, I tend to disagree with you, I think the Par 5s at HGC are actually pretty good, and, what's more, I imagine they were probably pretty exciting in a match play context as I think 3 of them (4, 10, 16) are reachable. 4 is clearly the weakest of the set. But, I think 10 is pretty good - and its fun to throw a low running hook into that green over that short bunker, and 16 is also fun to try to play the opposite shot, a high fade, knowing that being above the hole is big trouble.  9 is pretty good as the blindness at least makes it adventurous.
 
I do agree with your assessment of 7-8 as being the stronger of the holes. On balance, i think the nines at HGC tends to start off well and finish well, with some mediocrity in the middle. As far as holes 19-27, I do like the 27th hole, even if it is somewhat of a mirror image of the adjoining hole. 

[Brad Klein]

"the adjoining hole" - which you can't even number! That proves at least one of my points.

[Mike Davidson]

RDecker,

The Archictecture Pedigree of HGC is as follows

Original Club NLE Alex Findlay 1909-1911
Donald Ross   1914 holes 4, 5, 14 and 15 and a practice hole behind #4 green
Devereaux Emmet 1921-1924  ( 14 holes north of Albany Ave and a NLE 9 hole short course)
 (1,2,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,...17, 18 and was not completed until 1927

Donald Ross 1946 completed designing the last 4 holes (? ) and designed an addtional 9 holes ( 27 hole routing exists in the Superintendants Office.

1955 Ross's last 4 holes open

1961 Third 9 opens

William Gordon 1965.....redesign of 9 and 10 and new practice range

R T Jones 1966....irrigation design

after that not sure who else had a hand in it...RTJ may have done some tee work

Stephen Kay....bunker work 1996 before the Mid AM

Currently....brand new Superintendent as of Jan 1....Jonathan Burke.....working hard
USGA 2008 Girls Junior Championship in July.....input from the USGA agronomists.....lots of trees have been removed, new tees leveled on 3, 7 and 13......aeration and top dressing of fairways to reduce compaction of clay based soil, recapture of green perimeters and squaring of tee boxes.  It has been a mild winter and the course is in very good shape early on.  I think you will be pleased.


Glen

Waking this 10 year old thread up on the Hartford Golf Club.  I have been researching the history of Maplewood Country Club in Northern New Jersey which has led me to discover Alfred Williams as the architect for at least the first nine holes.  Mr. Williams is also credited with at least some of the design and/or construction of Hartford Golf Club around the time Devereux Emmet was there.  That thread is here (http://www.golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php/topic,64126.0.html) but I will also re-post a few articles in support of credit to Mr. Williams in the next few posts. 

[Mike Davidson]

The Hartford Courant 15 Sep 1925 lists Emmet as laying out the Hartford Golf Club, but I could not find too much more on it.






The Hartford Courant 18 Oct 1920 talks about Emmet redesigning The Country Club at Farmington and also talks about his contribution to NGLA and how he brought some template holes to Farmington, but nothing here on Hartford Golf Club.

[Mike Davidson]

The Hartford Courant 19 Apr 1914

[Mike Davidson]

The Hartford Courant 07 Mar 1915

[Mike Davidson]

The Hartford Courant 09 Apr 1916

[Mike Davidson]

The Hartford Courant 23 Jul 1916

[ANTHONYPIOPPI]

The club has drawings from Ross and Emmet displayed on the clubhouse wall, including individual hole designs from the Ross redesign, his second visit to the site. The Emmet layout included a short course inside a portion of the larger layout. The extra hole, located between the current 4th and 5th, is a par-3 from the original Ross routing that Emmet kept.
In 1912 some guy named Francis Ouimet was part of the Massachusetts amateur team that beat their Connecticut counterparts at Hartford.

I've caddied there on weekends and for tournaments since 2001.