Farmingbury Hills Golf Club

Fun course. Great for the price. Can’t wait to go back.

Went here on a whim and it was a great little course. The course could use some TLC in places but the challenge is there. The scenery was beautiful and the wildlife abundant. Had a good time.

This course is small yet a enjoyable course to play if you are a beginner/intermediate player. For a cloudy day with a chance of rain there were still a good amount of people on the course. It did make it a challenge. The pace of play felt rushed and instead of asking to go ahead there were a few groups that just jumped ahead of us or kept hitting on top of us since many of the holes are short. That’s not the courses fault just the people attracted to it. Besides that the staff was amazing and very accommodating. We arrived way too early and they were able to get us out on the course right away when we got there. So, much appreciated!

Layout wasn't bad but because it is byild on a mountain some challenging holes. Course was in good shape. Too many leaves but that's what you get for golfing in November. Would play it again.

Fun course but overpriced based on conditions. Pace of play is ridiculous. 3 hours for 9 holes in a cart for 2 people is unacceptable. Great staff and layout but way overpriced compared to other courses in the area.

First time playing. Overall the course was in very good condition. Greens were in great shape. Signage could be a little better getting from hole to hole. A couple times we had no idea where the next hole was and had to use the scorecard to help. Other than that minor ding, I'd recommend this course to a friend and will definitely play it again. The views are spectacular!!!

Although many Connecticut golfers seem unaware of it, Farmingbury Hills, a classic nine-holer, is one of this west-central region’s highlights. Some of the good players I know have discovered the merits of this track in recent years.

Connecticut is home to twenty full-length nine-hole courses, and at least ten of them–impressively–sport layouts ranging in quality from very good to excellent. A handful of these outstanding tracks are found nestled in the western Connecticut hills: Green Woods, Hotchkiss, Stonybrook, and Farmingbury Hills. Of these four, only Stonybrook is a modern, post-war creation; the other three are products of golf’s Golden Age. Farmingbury Hills opened for play one-hundred two years ago.

This Wolcott course, situated along the ridge of a huge hill close to I-84, is the most rugged course in these western hills (Stonybrook ranks a close second). Surprisingly, Farmingbury is still walkable, though the majority of golfers who play it choose to ride carts. Not a single one of the nine holes here is even close to flat, and those that descend hills, especially the second through fourth, are often spectacularly laid out. Holes five and six, on the other hand, ascend impressive hills, and eight–when played as a par-4–traverses a dell to its plateau landing zone. None of the routing seems contrived, although some of the holes have surprising twists and obstacles: the second has a tall and wide-spreading tree in the right side of its fairway; the fourth’s fairway spills off abruptly and downhill into the woods before its dogleg; the fifth’s green sits on what seems at least a three-story plateau, making club-selection very tricky. The seventh’s green is set on another, smaller plateau with a big dropoff on its right side, encouraging players to choose the left side of the fairway (the tougher side to hit) if they are to have the safest and most direct line of attack into the pin.

Golf challenges aside, I noticed that the course has improved since the day I played it in July, when the fairways and roughs sometimes a bit baked out and, in places, below average. Overall, conditioning was good today, with the greens standing out. Fairways were average–the only weak link. Pace of play today was on the slow side, somewhat below average but still decent.