The Spa at Norwich Inn

Love this course. Caddied there as a kid and played with my dad. The course is in great shape and the staff is super. You can't go wrong with Norwich golf course

Running through Connecticut woodlands and featuring a variety of challenging holes, Norwich Golf Course was a pleasure to encounter on my first visit today. Good things often come in ‘muni’ packages, and this course ranks among the top munis throughout the state.

Over the first four holes, it is the scenery that is the star—they are all beautiful—but none of these, strangely, seems to generate great excitement. The third is challenging, especially with its small plateau green, but it, along with the forth, are strictly target affairs. The latter is the toughest par-four at Norwich, but, despite its beauty and clear challenge, playing this hole felt as gloomy as a wet holiday: it’s a tight uphill trek between the dense woods, demanding only bullet-straight shots.

On holes 5 through 8, things liven up dramatically, and this outstanding stretch starts with the fantastic fifth, a downhill 510 yard par-five and superb test of strategy that should tempt both mid and long hitters into making it a two-shotter. The green complex is everything you’d expect from this course’s classically-rooted architects, Tull and Tull (who clearly should not be confused with the British rock band), as it possesses flowing and swelling ground contours—one of them a pronounced hump—that make approach shots and greenside chips anything but dull. The other great hole over this sequence is the seventh, which tempts you to carve a power-fade around the heavily tree-protected elbow of its dogleg. Then you’ll need to fly a precise short-iron directly up a tall hill to its diminutive green; the two gaping and ‘submerged’ bunkers to its left, invisible from the fairway, will gobble up pulled shots, and anything pushed won’t fare much better. It’s a unique and spectacular golf hole.

On the back nine, Norwich delivers three classic holes right out of 1926, when this layout was crafted. The dogleg-right tenth, not a ferocious hole from the tee, sports another tiny green—really, you almost have to be Jason Day to hit greens this small with regularity. A wide and welcoming fairway greets you at the 412-yard four-par 11th, yet your approach must traverse a deep gully to reach a temptingly perched putting surface. If you reach it successfully, then simply two-putt the subtly contoured green and give yourself a hearty congratulations for making par on a hole this intense. The twelfth is another classic five par, and every one of the three here (including the 560 yard 14th) has star-quality.

The 13th is a short, outrageously steep uphill par-three that forces you to strive and struggle on every shot to make par; its green, a mere seventeen yards in diameter, gilds the lily (this seems like difficulty for its own sake), and may leave you temporarily feeling that you’re playing mini-golf on its two-tiered surface. Sixteen impresses greatly with its plateau green, set on another steep (this time only 30-foot) rise, but seventeen, despite its spectacular, rolling terrain, remains a bit underwhelming to play: the entire hole feels awkward to me. The finishing par-three 18th, quirky but challenging as the closer, will require, for most, a midiron struck laser-straight to a semi-blind green, whose opening is a mere 14 yards wide.

Judging by the positive reviews of Norwich on this website, golfers generally take kindly to this track. Nonetheless, it lacks real rigor as a test of driving, as too many of the holes are virtually wide open; combine this factor with the large number of short par-4’s, and some single-digit players will likely find fault. The 9th hole, arguably the toughest here, is also a love-or-hate-it proposition: the expectation is the striking of a nearly perfect mid-iron 200 yards steeply downhill to a green that is proportioned, literally, for a 50-degree approach wedge. Playing Norwich, which slopes at a high 131 from the blues, may also be an acquired taste, and you’ll need some genuine patience and course knowledge to master its clever subtleties, not to mention the high number of quite-small greens. But its classic, old-school style is to its credit: I find that these layouts can be a welcome relief from the modern fare, courtesy of the Dyes and Fazios and Trent Joneses, so fully entrenched these days. And I’m hard pressed to think of a more beautiful public golf course in all of Connecticut. Right from tee one, the surrounding scenes often felt as soothing as a field looks in a Cezanne landscape, so aesthetic is this golf course and so peaceful are the mature trees that frequently line its broad fairways.

Norwich may be from another era—albeit a classic one—and it is slightly flawed, in my judgment, by today’s harsher standards, but this fascinating design at least belongs in the conversation as one of Connecticut’s ‘best’ east-of-the-river layouts. I’ve lived a few towns away from here for nearly 25 years now, and after playing in on Sunday I wanted to kick myself (not too hard, of course) for never having played golf at this fine club.

First time golfing here, 18 holes for 2 with a cart cost $65 ("super saver"). The course is well maintained. The layout is great, very spread out and spacious. Tough round of golf though! Small greens with pin placement either at the front of the back of the green. Lots of slopes on their greens as well. We especially LOVED "the Gopher hole" at near holes 9 & 10 - beers/drinks were $3.50/each! The carts and cart paths could use some TLC but nothing to complain about!

The course was nice, staff were extremely friendly and helpful.

This course has it all, good greens, great layout, and good location. The cart paths need work though and are getting extremely dried out. Otherwise nice course.

Today’s heat was oppressive but there was an abundance of water on the course. The greens were slow but can be attributed to the dry day. Pace of play was slow however. This course is a great deal for the money.

This is a nice public course. Greens are small but good. It was very busy and took forever to play 18 today, but usually is not slow. Good course

Nice course, the staff is friendly, everything is well kept. Downside, i have never played 18 in less than 5 hours here. This seems to be the coffin Dodgers country club. My last time out it took just over 3 hours to play 9 holes. If your going to play here get a very early morning tee time.

Well groomed

Greens are very nice

Beautiful layout

Wide fairways