CParish860

The Ranch is one of my favorite courses in New England. Pristine and challenging, it has many of the amenities of a top-end resort course but without the pretentiousness. Much of the course's challenges lie with the elevation changes, which also provide stellar views. Good shots are rewarded, off-course shots are punished, and the course is scorable without being repetitive. I'll make this course an annual trek and look forward to that tee time every fall.

For the money, it's a perfectly reasonable course. Plenty of other courses in the area think their course is better than it really is and the price reflects it. This place is unassuming and perfectly reasonable. The tee boxes and greens are perfectly fine. The fairways are certainly less pristine, especially if it's been dry (and it's been very dry lately). But this course also presents a decent set of challenges. Most holes are tree-lined and tight. A protruding tree here and there and several doglegs make distance control and shot shapes paramount. You'll have more than one hole where playing sideways from the trees is your best play. Stone-E-Lea is a good course to work on your game. It's not the course I'd want to join and play every day, but I enjoy my occasional trips here.

This isn't the best course you'll ever play, but it will certainly give you opportunities to use every club in your bag. Different challenges await you on every hole on a course that meanders through a local neighborhood. Walking can be a challenge, especially the very hilly back 9. No two holes are exactly alike, meaning you'll have decisions to make -- driver or long iron? Play it safe or be aggressive? The greens are decent and the course was in pretty good shape. It's tight, though. If you tend to spray the ball, being conservative is a good play -- especially with the nearby houses not too far from the ball's trajectory.

This course has undergone a lot of changes recently and you can tell they're working hard on making it a good, solid course. They're on their way. The staff is excellent and they have fun, creative ways to make it an entertaining place to come back to over and over again.

The course is rolling, fairly short, but provides enough of a challenge to keep me coming back multiple times. It's a great practice course for me (I'm a 12 handicap). The tee boxes need work, and recently installed irrigation has led to a few rough patches, but the greens are mostly fair and there's plenty to think about - long or short? Aggressive or conservative? Until recently, the course was missing yardage markers which made things a bit more difficult, but they've amended this. A friendly ranger doesn't do the best job of keeping pace of play moving, but he's out there at least, and he's a nice guy.

The food at the outdoor tiki bar is EXCELLENT, though the bartenders could be a bit more attentive.

This course is still working out a few kinks, but I'm a fan. I hope they keep moving in a positive direction.

This course, from what I've heard, used to be awesome, then fell into disrepair. It's not nearly as bad as other courses in the area, and I think it gets a bad rap sometimes, but I think the frustration is how good the course COULD be. There are some boring holes but others that make up for it, and it's reasonably priced. I'd like to see the owners really pour some money into this course; by redesigning a few holes and raising the profile of the course, it could be one of the better courses in the area again.