Wintonbury Hills Golf Course

Highly recommended. Par 70 6300 yards from the green tees. Nice layout w/ a good variety of holes, Course is in good condition after a dry, hot summer. Greens have a good bit of undulation making for tricky reads & few straight putts. Fairways are generous, lined by either fescue or trees. Nits - Bunkers were in pretty tough condition due to no rakes & players not smoothing foot prints, a couple of pin locations had been overused creating many pitch marks near the pins.

The course is a combination of a links course and a mountain course. Conditions were good and greens relatively fast. ( I play mostly private clubs so my standards may be biased) pace of play was good. The controlled golf carts that at limited You to the fairways were somewhat annoying. Overall it was an enjoyable golf experience.

I had played this course a few years ago & enjoyed it. But today was a different story.

Everyone who wants a cart pays $15. At first I was impressed with the new carts they had. That was until I got on the golf course. It was a hot day & on the first hole, a par 4, the monitor said cart path only.

The week before at a different course it rained so that made sense, but on a sunny day having to walk across the fairway with your clubs made it frustrating. .

A couple times I tested it & either it wouldn’t tell you until you tried to leave or it shutdown going there. At which point you had to put it in reverse, or the cart shut down Entirely (twice on me) & it didn’t function either way.

For the two of us it made our round of golf un enjoyable.

Wintonbury Hills definitely a top course in Connecticut. Unfortunately cannot say the same for the staff in the Pro Shop. Dismissive and unprofessional. Course was in good shape considering the heat of this summer. Greens were more receptive then than in previous seasons.

Despite the excellent course conditions, I had been backed up since the second hole. The waiting continued til the 18th hole. At the 5th hole, 4 groups were waiting for their tee off. A marshal needs to patrol to keep up the pace of play.

Course was extremely dry which is to be expected. Layout is great but what shocked me was the staff in the clubhouse. Guy running the shop was a complete grump, never even told me how much the round was. Just swiped the card and sent me on my way. Me and my brother checked our statements and the guy charged us each 25 dollars to share a cart which is INSANE. 25 dollars for a cart is fine. But 50.....can play a round elsewhere for that kind of money. Overall disappointing experience

I played this course today for the first time. I had really high hopes. After a 2 hour drive to get there, I was excited to play. Nice course, but no way this course should be #1 on GolfWeek. Oxford Greens, which is the only other CT course I've played, is much nicer and much more challenging. So by default, this would be #2 for me. I need to play some other courses in CT, and plan to this season.

Pros:

Tees were in fantastic shape.

Greens were in fantastic shape. Fast and true.

Fairways were firm, which I like. But see my Cons below as well

Cons:

Fairways. They were burned out and dry.

Rough was also burned out and dry. You could hear it crackling under your feet.

Kind of a boring layout. Wasn't much of a challenge to be honest.

I think part of the issue with me not placing this course on such a high level would be the fact that the course was one of the driest courses I've ever played. We haven't had any rain recently, so I imagine it's tougher to play when the grass isn't dead. I'd like to play it again when it's lush and green. Photos on this site and other sites don't really show what the course looks like in its current condition. So perhaps this rating could go higher in the future, but since I live 2 hours away, I can 't imagine getting there anytime soon. Next time I go there, it would have to be during a time when we have sufficient rain to make this course green.

Great time none the less. But next time I would cut my drive in half and hit up Oxford Greens. Or, Drive the same distance and check out some place else like Fox Hopyard or Gilette Ridge.

Pros

- Pete Dye design

- Lots of holes are forgiving if tee shots aren't great.

- Some blind shots make up for a bit of a challenge.

- Greens are quite good with lots of sloping.

- Staff is very friendly

- Pace of play was right on point at 4 hours

Cons

- This probably was because of the time I played, but the fairways where rather dry.

- Because of the driy fairways the bounces were crazy at times.

- Greens rolled well but speed was inconsistent.

Overall, I would come back when conditions are top notch, it has been a dry summer so I completely understand why the course was playing the way it was. Layout is wide and open and not the most difficult course I played.

Wintonbury is in great shape. Greens rolled true, fairways and rough alike were lush and green. Impressive given the lack of rain we've had the last month or two. They seem to be navigating Covid protocols well.

The Shark Experience, allowing you to play music from the cart is awesome.

$56 for a Saturday late morning tee time isn't bad. Pace of play was great for about 5 holes, then ground to a halt. Was more often in a 5-hour round pace than a 4-hour or less. That was really the only downside. Everything else was fantastic.

I booked a “Hot Deal” on Golf Now for a foursome for $46 + $3 convenience fee, total of $49 each. When we arrived at the course we were told that this was a walking rate and that a $15 cart fee was additional, so it cost us each $64. If we had just paid the regular Senior weekday rate at the Pro Shop of $37 plus the cart fee of $15, it would have only cost us $52. Read the fine print - this was not obvious on Golf Now and our “Hot Deal” was no deal at all!