Jones at Lyman Orchards Golf Club

I meet a friend twice a year for golf and we rotate the meeting place and this time we played at Lyman Jones course. Great day!

Great price for 18 and a cart. Course is in fantastic condition. Pace of play was perfect on front 9 but back 9 we got stuck behind a tournament. Regardless I’ll play there again as soon as I can.

Lyman is a great course but the pace of play here is notoriously atrocious. Our round took over 5 hours to finish and we teed off at 830am. They stack too many tee times together and it makes a great course unbearable. The starter also needs a vacation cuz the dude is more rude than anyone.

Walking off the 18th green, I felt stupid that it had taken me so long to finally play this course. Better late than never, though; the Jones is a solid, well-kept midcentury public course in the heart of the state. The fact that it shares property with a fruit-growing operation that has been around since colonial times adds charm to the experience, as do the unfailingly friendly people. A hilly-ish front nine gives way to a flatter back nine with some wetlands and water, as well as a covered bridge that crosses a river. Add in a great hot dog at the turn and public golf hardly gets more Connecticut than this.

This is my 5th course and the best one I've played. Difficult but alot of fun!

I have played every course in the area and this was really bad. Horrible shape, pace of play. Tee times 8 minutes apart. No Marshall or Ranger. Way overpriced. Avoid

The course was nice and in good condition. You get penalized if you miss the greens left or right. The front 9 played harder for me than the back. The pace of play was slow and it was hot, but the course was beautiful. A ranger came out14th hole and apologized for the delay and said he asked the slow group to speed up which they did and it was nice after that. We waited on every hole up to then. They had a cart girl which was nice and there was water on he course and it was cold and that was awesome!

$37 for 18 walking

$60 for 18 holes with cart.

That is robbery. I live 3 miles away and I guess it's time to find another course. They're electric carts, not Teslas , $10 is fair

I love playing here . The food is fantastic and they take great care of the course. I visit Lymans store, orchards and golf several times per week. Unfortunately the golf aspect of my visits are probably done.

Lyman Orchards Golf Club is situated on an isolated tract of acreage in the countryside, not far from the quiet town center of rural Middlefield. When driving toward the course from Meriden, then crossing the Middlefield town line, it’s hard not to notice the clear transition from suburbia to scenes highlighted by unspoiled stretches of mature forestland, large reservoirs, and handsome agrarian landscapes. The Jones Course, once farmland itself, has greatly benefitted from a conversion from this rolling terrain into virtually ideal golf holes, especially on the hilly front nine (which I played today in the later afternoon).

The Lyman Jones Course is certainly as beautiful an eighteen as you’ll find anywhere in New England. But your scorecard numbers may not always seem a thing of beauty. While you certainly can post the score you want on the Jones when you play well, you’ll have to overcome a very tough test, for the course slopes at a steep 134 from the back tees, with a scratch rating of 74.0 against par of 72.0. From the back tees this course runs 7,001 yards, from the blues 6,614; and it’s still relatively long from all others. Robert Trent Jones, Sr., who designed this course in 1969, used the water holes brilliantly, especially at ten and fifteen. Only one of the par-5s–the twelfth–is particularly perilous, but the other three typify Trent Jones’ architectural style. And that means rigorous, long, and studded with big, meddlesome bunkers.

On this outward half, Lyman can prove fearsome, especially off the tee. Notably tight holes are a pair of par-fours, the third and fifth, where any slice is almost destined to end up in no-man’s land, your ball never to be found in the deep woods–or perhaps a watery grave. The fifth fairway is surprisingly narrow for a relatively lengthy par-4. The opening hole can intimidate, too, with its right-bending dogleg funneling through a well-treed fairway. It’s all too easy to land in the left side rough, and then likely face a long approach into an elevated, bunker-guarded green. The hole ranges 435 yards from the deep tees, 416 blues. It may be the greatest opening hole in the state of Connecticut.

The length of these holes is obvious by the time you’ve played the first four holes. The fourth is one of two very long five-pars, both topping out at over 570 yards. For the vast majority of players, then, these monsters will be three-shotters. Yet both are beautifully designed to use the slopes and rely on bunkering and fairway angles to enhance strategic play from tee to green. Similarly long are both par-3s. The tougher of this pair is the 197-yard seventh, a devilish hole that plays uphill to a narrow green set at a thirty-degree angle to the tee and is protected well by a left-side bunker. From the tee, the hole almost begs you to fashion a controlled draw into its green.

It’s hard to pick the best of these Lyman/Jones holes, but for sheer challenge on the front side I would take the opening hole, the #3 handicap index, as it is just as demanding on the approach as from the tee. For subtlety of design and especially its green complex, I like the 366-yard eighth. The putting surface here is fantastically contoured, its back-upper level tricky to hit even with a wedge in hand. The par-5 fourth, probably the best driving hole, demands careful play from tee to green, which is even more impressive when you consider that this is essentially a straight hole with a fairly generous fairway.

Conditions:

Outstanding, overall. The only areas that did not match the rest were the roughs and bunkers, which ranged from average (bunkers) to good (most of the roughs). Greens and greenside areas here were top-notch. The fairways were about the best I’ve played anywhere this year, except for one top-rated (and similarly priced) Scottish course called Largs, in Ayrshire, back in June/July.

Some Conclusions:

It has always been clear to me that rating golf courses has a real element of subjectivity. Still, the difference in quality seems very slight among the public golf tracks that I consider to be the top three in the state: Wintonbury Hills, Keney Park, and Lyman/Jones.

The Jones Course, even nine holes of it, felt again today like a slice of golfing paradise in the Middlefield countryside.

First time playing Lyman this year. The Jones course has held up very well through the very wet season. Fairways were in great shape, though a bit soft (as expected) making the course play a bit long. Rough was thick & lush, tee boxes were in good condition. Only nits were the greens (slow & pitch mark covered) & bunkers (very firm w compacted sand, haven't been raked) pace of play was 4 hrs for a mid morning tee time on a Tuesday with the course being not very busy.