Hawk's Landing Country Club

My first time playing and I really liked the layout of the course and the design of the holes but that is pretty much it. Greens had been top dressed the day I played or the day before and it was like putting on the beach. The tee box’s were all beat up which was dissapointing.

Played on 6/19 Juneteenth. After 3-4 holes pace bogged down. A few holes later, the group in front of ours mentioned that course manager had inserted a couple of extra groups in front of our rotation. What nonsense and utter greed. We will never play Hawk's Landing again. Not worth the trip, even if they offered us a mulligan. Ciao,,,

A lot of the greens were covered in needles,. Almost every trap was overgrown with weeds and the rough was extremely high. The tee boxes and fairways were in great shape. The course is short and very tight.

Been there many times in the last few years with no issues , but took me 5 hours to play 18 holes when we teed off early sat morning. I’m sure it affected the whole day . Someone should monitor play and if a group falls 2 -3 holes behind the group ahead of them someone should adress the issue

Some tee boxes not mowed (ankle high grass). Most tee boxes not even close to being level. Greens generally in fair shape with some being in good shape. Fairways generally in fair shape with some being poor. Some bunkers either missing or having a lot of grass growing in them. Very expensive for the course condition.

Unusual layout with some par 4s and par 3's acout the same length. Not your average round. Good scoring opportunities and some real thinking holes.

The course let their superintendent go over the winter and it really shows. The tee boxes were in moderate shape and need work. the Greens were good, but the fairways also showed considerable wear. They were mowing the rough for what appeared to be the first time in about two months as the grass was knee high.

The greens and around greens are in good condition. Some good holes like 11 out of 18 with two long over water par 3s. Bunker are all basically growing weeds in them. Not worth this hot deal price even so many other courses out there for the price or under. I went through golf pay from hawks website for $45 with a cart or $30 walking. I would say worth it for that but should be less for the conditions

I played here on a beautiful early fall afternoon today, when the weather was actually hot. The course’s fairways and roughs, still saturated from the heavy rains of several days ago, gulped golf balls and left them plugged–and I found a couple of lost balls by virtually stepping on them. Conditions suffered from the wetness, as the roughs, tees, greenside areas, and fairways needed mowing, while the bunkers remained essentially washed out. Only the greens were good, but even they had some modest detritus from the recent streams of water that had been running across them.

The layout proved fun to play, once again. After my last few rounds here, one of my favorite holes has become the sixth, a hole that was easy to dislike–initially. But now I see it, after repeated plays, as a challenging but fair driving hole, with a

forced carry over a pond to a fairway that seems just wide enough for comfort. It’s really what lies outside of the fairway borders that will make for a tricky GIR should you fail to find the short grass.

HL is still on my short list of worthwhile Connecticut courses that are enjoyable each time out. A couple of the holes–seven and eight–may seem a bit quirky, but they’re still quite playable given straight tee shots. If you’re game for it, though, seven will up the ante by its infusion of risk-reward into the mix. Just don’t hook it off the tee.

FRONT NINE Review: The front nine at Hawk’s Landing springs from the fine visual imaginations of Geoffrey Cornish and his associate Bill Robinson. The holes mix high tee shots from elevated mounds, greens with various forms of protection, several forced carries, and hazards ranging from huge bunkers to ponds and streams–or even mature trees that sometimes dictate the line of play. Although the rather tough par-3s will force most golfers to use longer clubs off the tee, the core of this front side resides in par-4s: two of them, from the blue tees, are driveable; four are in the range of 350 yards long; the downhill fourth hole (arguably the best of these) stretches to 375 yards. Yet from the deep tees, the course slope comes in a bit above average, largely due to a back nine that supplies the real rigor by its length and some tighter or more demanding holes.

Across Connecticut–and, moreso, all of New England–Cornish built scores of good golf courses, and Hawk’s Landing typifies his careful, balanced, and varied approach to their design, mainly based on an incorporation of the general feel that the Canadian Hall of Fame architect often sought. This sprang from what influenced him most: Scottish golf courses and their landforms. Here, then, as I’ve frequently found with Cornish layouts, there’s little of the predictability or dullness that often marks the average golf track.

On this front side, the fifth and sixth stand out–in very different ways–as break-the-box par-4s. Five is particularly good: a drive from a towering tee box; an approach that must carry a small, circuitous stream to a slightly pitched green; a threatening copse of trees (rightward), as well, that will snatch a pushed shot. Fairly enough, though, the shorter hitter can run up a shot onto this fifth green, as it’s open in front.

Cornish’s designs also may seem a bit minimalist to some, but a hole like the ninth (a complex par-3 if there ever was one) belies such stereotyping.

Conditioning here, as I found it today, was superlative overall, with ultra-smooth and fast greens that keep putts rolling purely, emerald-green fairways with surprisingly little wear for the amount of play this public course generates, and well-kept tees. If there are ‘better conditioned’ courses in Connecticut, their price-tags for eighteen holes are invariably north of $70, in my experience. The only flaw I found here occurred at the one bunker I stepped into today at nine, which had too many stones in the sand for my liking. Only the pace of play, a bit slow on several holes, disappointed somewhat today.

I’m looking forward to coming back in the near future, when I plan to play the full eighteen; it’s a course that has quickly become one of my favorites in central Connecticut.

The Southington course serves up a relatively short but tough-to-conquer layout, sparked by enough challenging holes to hold your interest, but also balanced design and rolling terrain.

Playing just the front side today, I was again reminded of the various ways its designer, Geoffrey Cornish, strove for balance. Most of its short holes–notably 3, 6, 7, and 8–tighten the driving zones, contrasting to several wider fairways on other holes both front side and back. While five of the front nine holes jealously protect their greens with multiple greenside traps (often large), greens three, five, and eight are, as a group, almost bunkerless. These three instead depend on mounding to deflect errant shots. Cornish also paid attention to the ‘vertical’ dimension of course architecture: tree limbs jut out forcibly on five of the front-side fairways. But on a couple of holes, namely four and five, trees interfere minimally around fairway landing zones. The Hawk’s Landing greens, too, offer a variety of sizes, slopes and shapes.

Most Tactical Hole: Par-4 Sixth–dogleg right, 355

After a significant carry off the tee to a problem-laden fairway, the optimal angle into the green proves to be from the fairway’s left side. On the right, trees may block the approach, an approach that must carry a pond stretching close to the front of the putting surface. The green, thankfully, is mostly flat.

Most Interesting Hole: Par-4 Fifth, 380 yards

This downhill challenger boasts one of the best views from anywhere on the property on its tee, where you’ll launch your drive down a steep hill to a broad fairway fraught with a bit of danger both left and right. From there, today, I poked a 9-iron into the slightly raised and undulating green. Prior to the putting surface, a meandering brook snakes along and may consume a ball hit weakly. A hole that’s a pure pleasure to look at as you play it.

Conditions:

Impressive conditions for springtime on and around the smooth, predictable greens, and most of the fairways were good to excellent (a few are still undergoing some early season re-conditioning). Not bad considering recent dry conditions. Bunkers are filled with good-quality sand, but were not raked today–the only weak link here. The tees and roughs looked good overall, even if the latter will still need to grow more.

Conclusions:

This energetic front-side design from Geoffrey Cornish is solid, though not quite as dynamic as the more rough-and-tumble inward half, which is bolstered by steeper slopes and longer par-4s. Still, the front has a nice rhythm, created by its balanced approach, but also a gradual escalation of difficulty over the middle holes that climaxes on the tricky and tough eighth and ninth, the latter a brutal par-3. It’s no surprise that Hawk’s Landing finished sixth in the Golfer’s Choice Rankings for top Connecticut Courses of 2023.

Having played nine holes at Hawk’s Landing twice since April, and today the full eighteen, first impressions of the back side were more than favorable. The back seems to capture all that is best about the style of its two designers, Geoffrey Cornish and Bill Robinson, who applied ample bunkering in fairways and around greens, fashioned excellent green complexes, and crafted terrific variety amongst three triplets: three par-3’s, fours and fives, with all nine holes possessing an individual character. But there is balance, too, between open holes and a few that are more wooded (especially the thirteenth and seventeenth), while holes such as 14 and 15 have a sense of opposition–open versus tree-lined–on one side of the fairway versus the other. One of the inward half’s best aspects, though, is its constantly rolling, sliding, and bending ground movement, where successive holes tend to play down and then up (and vice versa), slopes around greens are geared to be both testing and playable, and the greens themselves pitch and roll in various directions. I used a driver on every par-four and five on the back nine today, feeling challenged to do so because each hole supplied enough bail-out room to make the slight added risk a worthwhile one. Adding to the high quality of this nine: nothing seems overdone; every feature appears as if it were chosen carefully to present some firm scoring resistance–yet the cumulative effect never crosses the line into toughness-for-its-own-sake. In terms of playability and interest, then, this nine–indeed, nearly the entire course–is first-rate.

Three Back Nine Standouts:

BEST HOLE, Par-4 14th, 400 yards.

Off the tee, this superlative tester plays downhill to a tree-lined landing zone, its major threat being the dense left-side forest. But the approach is magical: you can see the tempting green lying well below, guarded by a trio of bunkers along with some large mounding on the green’s periphery. An incoming iron shot may, for example, kick off the rightward mound and onto the beautifully contoured putting surface.

17: A TOP-NOTCH PAR-5

This Cape hole design tempts the player to bite off as much as (s)he can chew down the dogleg-left fairway, as off the tee you’ll want to carry a pond (mostly obscured by trees and sidling up to the landing zone’s entire left side). A huge multi-lobed bunker may well catch those who overshoot the fairway, so a draw is clearly the ideal play. Remarkably, the second shot may be more interesting because a towering pine presents an obstruction in the right side of the fairway, forcing you to play left, pretty much, and thus bringing that lengthy left-side pond again into play. I aimed just off the inside of the tree and managed to touch down on land. Another sprawling, multiform bunker impedes a direct approach to the green.

10: GREAT FOUR-PAR (#1 index, 410 yards)

Playing downhill off the tee and with mature trees looming on each side of the landing zone, this lean and tough hole begs for a carefully placed draw. On its heels you’ll need a precise mid-iron or hybrid to a perched green surrounded by the usual mounding–yet it’s massive here–and grass bunkering. Wow!

CONDITIONING

The whole course was in fine condition today, including greens, fairways, and tees. Roughs weren’t perfect but still good. I met the Course Superintendent, Dan Sisson, after the round and chatted with him for a bit. It’s clear he takes pride in how this course looks and plays, and, better still, believes in continuous improvement.

FRIENDLINESS

Outstanding both in the pro shop and out on the course. At the counter, Joe was personable and flexible. Out on hole fifteen, I happened to strike up a conversation with friendly starter Jack Fager (he was doing an errand) who showed his great enthusiasm for Hawk’s Landing; his picture is among the photos. I’m not sure how you can ask for anything more than a great vibe like this from a club’s staff.

BOTTOM LINE:

Hawk’s Landing is both stylish and original. With a slope of 121, this course is above average in difficulty, yet it won’t weary too many golfers. Cornish and Robinson wisely tilted the balance away from sheer hardness to strategic focus, lending it a nearly perfect playability. After a very good front side, on the back the course gets a turbo boost from a long string of excellent holes, many of them exhilarating. Despite a few unusual twists you’ll encounter in certain spots from tee to green, this layout is about the playing of smart and careful golf. The holes that feature some risk/reward possibilities add an extra dimension to the mix.