Gillette Ridge

Would have rated higher but just punched greens. Course is 1st class. Staff great.

Nice staff, holes have a lot of character … 19th hole nice with great sandwiches. Great job.

Excellent golf course. It was designed by the late King Arnold Palmer. Difficult but fair

I would definitely play this course again!

But, next time, I would find out if they just aerated the greens.

I didn't find out until I arrived that only the back 9 was open because they were aerating the front. So, we did two laps around the back 9. Only problem was that they aerated those greens the day before!!!

So, a less than ideal exposure to the course.

7:07 am tee time, $22 with cart for 18. Get to the course to be informed that the front is closed due to aeration but you can play the back twice. Sounds reasonable except the back was aerated yesterday. Thanks for wasting my day off Gillette. Will never return. By the way, your fairways are waterlogged and the majority of your bunkers look like swimming pools. Course is a joke. Avoid at any cost.

Course is always in nice shape. The only issue is that the play is ungodly slow. The course really needs to enforce the pace of play. It shouldn’t take almost 3 hrs to play 9 holes.

I try to play whenever I can find a GN deal. Super challenging and fun!

Greens were a little slow this time, but we just had a lot of rain. Going back soon!

A beautiful course with a great mix of holes. There’s some forced carries with some approaches and tee shots which make this course a lot of fun. If you’re newer to the game then I’d recommend bring some extra balls because of the above. Also the par 4s give you a lot of versatility with club selection since you don’t just have to pound a driver on every hole. A true Arnold Palmer design in which having a good strategy from the tee can reward you.

Great, challenging course however it should not take 5+ hours for a round of golf. Starter was seen on the 3rd hole and then never again throughout the remainder of the round. Course is in great condition, no other complaints other than pace of play.

...they need to tie up a few things if they want to continue being considered one of the better public courses in CT.

Overall, the course is in decent shape, which it really should be considering the spring and summer we've had in CT. Any course that isn't lush, full and green with all the early season rain is that way because it's been neglected. Period.

That's not the case for Gillette. It's a nice course with a great layout (you better hit a straight ball or you're going to have a rough outing). I would rank it up there with Wintonbury, Rockledge, Stanley, Fairview Farms, Connecticut National, Richter (maybe, they've slid down in recent years) to name a few. These are the favorably priced public or semi-private courses. I'm not going to even mention the Great Rivers or Lake of Isles (Foxwoods) that are top notch too, but at a different price points. With the longstanding drawbacks mentioned below though, it's near the bottom of that first list.

Anyway, the main issues with this course seem to be pace of play management and sand trap conditions. It really should not take five to five hours and fifteen minutes to play a round of golf. I'm not normally a complainer about this if the pace is semi decent, but on this day we were behind a six-some. You read that right. What essentially happened is two three somes decided to team up and play as a six some because they were each waiting too long behind all the other foursomes on the course. IMO, this should NEVER happen on any course, let alone one that touts itself as a top course in the state. If the pace is slow, they need to have rangers out there pushing people along. It's really that simple. General pace of play for midday has almost always been a problem here though due to a driveable par 4 and some other quirky layout issues. It could be mitigated with some guidance and instruction to get people to move along. Maybe have a ranger parked on that hole who can instruct the next group hit up to that driveable par 4 while the ones that hit wait off to the side of the green? Just a thought...

As to the sand traps, they were all a packed, firm, "deadpan like" sand. Several even had standing water even though the area hasn't had a ton of recent precipitation. Ideally, they should truck in several tons of actual sand or at the very least, machine rake what you have so every sand shot isn't off a hard surface? Based on some other comments, this seems to be a persistent issue for a while now.

Honestly, if I could, I would give this course an overall rating of 3.5 stars. I'm giving it the benefit of the doubt because of the challenging layout, great practice facilities and it's a course I really like that I've played dozens of times over the years. But, c'mon guys, it's the details like this that keep you from being a premier level course. And, most of them are self inflicted.

Oh, one last thought...GPS would probably help to speed things up a little too so everybody's not spending a ton of time lasering every shot unnecessarily.

Great course, nice conditions. Challenging but fairly open. Good bar and restaurant. Would definitely go back

The course has gone down hill, but the price is still high.

.. couldn't use grass on range, no rakes in the bunkers that were in poor condition.

But the Worst was the pace of play (lack of)-- on a 6 hour pace, no ranger, multiple groups waiting on every tee.

8 minute tee times are ridiculous.

Avoid.