Wheeler Family Traditions Golf Club

Course is in great shape. The staff is great. Very well run.

Nice course. Staff was very friendly. Food at the clubhouse was not very good, but the drinks were spot on

Awful condition. Tee boxes are hilly and never flat. Pace of play is the worst I have experienced in 20 years of playing golf. Staff is great but even they warn you how slow the course plays before you tee off.

Course has been very consistent and is in reasonable condition. Other than the Island green the par threes could use some excitement.

Great course and conditions. Good value. Would definitely play again especially for the island green.

Playing from the Blue tees, the course is really quite challenging.. It was quite soft with the rain and resulting course conditions but there are a number of great holes. The island par 3 , 12th and then the tricky 16th and 17th are the perfect choke holes coming in. We had lunch afterwards and the fish tacos and burger were awesome and good value. The critics will complain about the overhead wires but there is no better use for the land than a golf course...

This course is one of the courses than when you play it once or twice you remember every hole. Some are memorable for being challenging, some are memorable for being quirky and some because you just need to remember for next time. I had played here regularly with a work league, and enjoy returning and playing with buddies. Many trees have come down due to storms, and some holes benefited from this. The course was in very nice shape, with only a few holes having remnants of low spots that flooded and became spotty. The greens for the most part are well kept and make the play enjoyable. Slow play can be a problem at times, especially on 6-9 where a par 5, a short par 4, a par 3, come before the number one handicap hole the ninth. If you are looking for a weekday afternoon or late day this is located just off 91 in Wallingford and well worth a play.

Front Nine Review:

This attractive golf course, with an impressive clubhouse, outdoor dining, and well-cared-for grounds, projects an upscale feel, though it is reasonably priced. It also has a distinctly modern feel in both design and setting, which includes huge power lines (if only on the first few holes of the front), bordering condominiums, train tracks, and I-91 nearby. But The Tradition, despite its name, departs somewhat from the traditional on several holes of its opening nine. The course starts generically enough on its opening two holes, both mid-length par-4s and fairly spacious. Hole one travels uphill to a pitched green; the second hole crosses a valley to its landing area, the approach shot ascending uphill to a double-bunkered green with large mounds behind it.

Less predictable—and demanding more precision—is the par-3 third. Very short at 106 yards (white tees), its green is still well-protected by a pair of deep bunkers covering its entire frontal periphery. The putting surface itself features ticklish contours and a beautiful vista extends behind it, far beyond the roofs of the condos.

Then some high quality, not-so-traditional holes assert themselves at the mid-length fourth and fifth. The former is the 3 index and bends downhill to the left, making for a tricky tee shot to a largely hidden fairway. It will be followed up by a wedge to a tight, sloping green tucked in among the woods and condos. The fifth, on the other hand, opens up more on the drive, playing slightly uphill to a green which slopes with this hillside. Big bunkers, guarding both front and back of this green, add a nice aesthetic look. And putting on some of this green’s more extreme slopes will challenge you. Five may not be a purely ‘outside-the-box’ hole, but it is cleverly done and requires precision to play four good strokes here.

The one par-five on this nine comes at the sixth, a long-range proposition (518, whites; 554, blues) that gently bends leftward all the way to its pitched green, set hard against the woods on the right. It’s another conservative hole holding no big surprises, though its green slopes aggressively.

Hole seven, one of the best of the nine, measures only 281, yet it puts up a fight on the drive: an angled piece of fairway (over the last 30-40 yards) is surrounded by four fairway and two frontal greenside bunkers. It didn’t make great sense to me to drive into the midst of these six bunkers for the small advantage afforded; so it’s a good strategic hole, especially with the added option of trying to make it a one-shotter. That would require, however, a perfect tee shot with height and some bite.

The eighth was the only hole I thought average: it’s a competent but dull downhill three-par of 160 without bunkers and sided mostly by trees. Making up for it is the ninth, a longer four-par (and number 1 index) travelling to a fairly level driving area, then drastically uphill on the second to a fairly narrow green, a green difficult to hit in regulation and beset by heavy woods on the left.

This nine, then, balances traditional holes with four less typical ones—which are 4,5,7, and 9—each possessing some strategic option(s) or extra difficulty or other aspect of interest.

The Tradition may not be the kind of course that bowls everyone over, but its design is solid, fair, varied, and intelligent. Then again, we should expect as much from architects like Tull, Manning, and Rulewich. This layout put enough stress on my game (the course’s slope is 124 from the blues) on enough holes to keep me well engaged.

Conditioning ranged from good overall (fairways, rough, greenside areas) to very good (tees) to excellent (the smooth, fairly fast greens). No surprise that this hot, dry summer has taken some of the luster from a course that I would imagine is usually conditioned very well or even excellently in all facets.

One thing is certain, though: my enjoyment of this nine will spur me to return to play the entire eighteen.

Other notes & comments:

A) Covid-19 precautions were outstanding.

B) Fairly accessible (about 4-5 minutes) off of I-91.

C) Played with a true gentleman who joined me on the fourth. What impressed me most about him, among several admirable qualities, was how he played the game despite having suffered, many years ago, a very difficult injury. Amazing courage. We had some fun together, both chatting and playing golf.