Pequabuck Golf Club

The golf course is a favorite of mine with its bent grass greens that were in excellent condition. The course is a short course yardage wise, but don't get fooled into thinking it's easy. Windy conditions add to the challenge. The 5 par 3's offer different perspectives and are perhaps the best diverse offering of any course in the state. Score well here and you will score well elsewhere. One of the best features of this golf course is the pace of play. A foursome should play it in 4 hours or less.

Great views throughout the round. If you don’t keep the ball on target there is plenty of trouble with the narrow fairways.

First time playing the course and was very happy to find this place. Course was in great condition and we will be back for sure.

Course was in excellent condition and pace of play great

Only a few miles outside of Bristol, the terrain tends to rise into the rolling hills, some gentle, some more abrupt. Pequabuck’s golf course plays over some substantial ridges and through valleys, winding often through pleasant avenues of pines in the countryside. As a semi-private course with more limited opportunities to play, some might overlook Pequabuck, but once it has been toured, most golfers will find themselves returning here. At the close of 2019, it was ranked the top course in Golf Advisor’s Connecticut Golfer’s Choice list.

Pequabuck exemplifies classic American parkland golf at its best. Here, though, you will have a most strenuous test throughout the eighteen. The course’s defenses are varied: wood-lined and twisting fairways; big drop-offs around many greens; punishing rough and rolling fairways that produce awkward lies; big and deep greenside traps; and, at the outset of the back nine, the reservoir (aka Bristol Reservoir #1). If that isn’t enough, there is the set of well-contoured, sloping and very fast greens that will test all golfers—including those who are among the best putters. There is another important, ‘old school’ feature here that is noteworthy: the rolling contours in front of these greens, allowing for run-up approaches, typically within 100 yards or so. I found myself doing so, wedge in hand four or five times, working with, not against, the slickness of these greens.

This is about the sixth time I’ve played Pequabuck, and the second over the past year. What impressed me this time around was the utter solidity of the front nine as well as back, an inward half so absorbing that I’m not sure anything in Connecticut matches it. The majority of these holes retain that vintage, old-school feel harkening back to the 1920’s. But subsequent additions—and perhaps modifications and subtractions—also give it hybrid characteristics. For example, Geoffrey Cornish and William Robinson redesigned three of these holes, according to Cornish’s own work, The Golf Course (1988). The two with the most modern qualities, I think, are the stunning 10th and 11th, both set by the reservoir.

History aside, the course simply delivers one solid hole after another, every one of them commanding one’s attention. On the front, the sixth, seventh and eighth are as good as any back-to-back-to-back holes I can think of, except for—that is, Pequabuck’s own tenth, eleventh and twelfth. What I love especially about seven, a blockbuster of a par-five, are its ocean wave-like fairway contours (and we’re talking a big surf) that greet you in the landing area. These contours are virtually hazards in and of themselves. The fairway subsequently swoops dangerously down to a false-fronted, modestly scaled and bunker flanked green that may invite comparisons to a Donald Ross or Seth Raynor design. It is, then, the downhill second shot that is the most difficult, with woods and OOB looming left and scattered trees rightward. The hole is magical, and, as you would guess, a great birdie opportunity that might just as easily turn sour.

Twelve is another hole that buttresses that attack, if not as renowned as the two signature holes that begin the back nine. Yet it’s a gorgeous 407-yard trek through the tall pines, moving upward on the drive, then downward and over a big swale that lies in front of a perched, uncomfortably sloped green. Get locked in here: you’ll likely need four well-played strokes enroute to a par. I also love the sixteenth, a classic downhill three-par which plunges down over railroad tracks to a fortress-like green. It’s short, scenic, and utterly lethal. Is there a better quartet of par-threes in the state than at Pequabuck? You’ll have to think long and hard.
Best Hole: The 10th, both breathtakingly beautiful and agonizingly tough, plays from a high tee, beyond which the landscape plunges down into an expansive reservoir setting. Even if you manage to keep the ball on dry land with your tee shot, to make par you’ll still need an effective blast or chip or pitch—or simply a two-putt. Any of these can be tricky on and around the tenth green.

Hardest Hole: Ironically, playing ten, eleven and twelve can be almost therapeutic: they’re all so gorgeously scenic that they seem to wash away your concerns. Each one is also very tough, and eleven seems to me the toughest par on the golf course. The drive may be to an open-enough landing zone, though guarded strongly on the right by the reservoir. But the approach supplies the supreme challenge: you’ll need laser-like accuracy into a remarkably narrow and small green, which, incidentally, rolls down perilously toward the water. A good bet is to bounce the approach in from the right-side ridge.

Although Pequabuck’s design is clearly Golden Age, it lacks the typical trademarks of, say, a Ross design: there are no frequent optical illusions, no excessively sloping greens, and no such holes as “Volcanoes.” True, some of the greens slope pretty vigorously, and there are a couple of clever illusions built into the mix. But it hardly needs these sorts of things to impress. The genuinely tough holes here—and there are many—keep the pressure on throughout the round. Another great asset is the naturalness of the surroundings, leaving it hard for us to notice much deliberate shaping of the landforms. Here lies, you might say, the perfect antidote to those courses that pile on pointless design features, features which add zero to their playability or quality, although they do supply a measure of pretentiousness. Still, one thing is certain: Pequabuck retains an admirably classical approach and aesthetic.

There are certainly some golfers playing this game who accept the notion that newer courses are better. Does this enduring design represent the best public-access golf course in Connecticut? I would be hard-pressed to argue against it. Whatever your opinion, you should enjoy your golf here.

Other notes, comments, and opinions:
A)..Course conditioning ranks among the top tracks I’ve played this year. Everything seemed to be in the kind of shape that any good head greenskeeper would specify. My one objection is the intensely thick rough that borders some (not all) of the fairways—there is no intermediate cut. I lost a ball on 18, which was hit, I’m sure, barely off the fairway. Should decent shots incur this sort of penalty? No. I had no hope of finding my ball within a few minutes. But overall, conditioning was even better than last fall.
B) Friendliness and flexibility in the pro shop—in the person of Eric—was excellent. Impressive! And I chatted briefly with a few members who were extremely pleasant guys. The course has a great aura and atmosphere. Makes you want to come back again and again.
C) Pace of play was outstanding: I played in 3 hours, walking with my push-cart. The walk is a vigorous one, and I loved crossing the railroad tracks at 16.