Golf Center of Connecticut Return to Connecticut page
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784
River Rd
Shelton, CT 06484-5430
(203)
929-6500 Other Activities: Driving Range, skating rinks
Cost:
$8.50 for adults + $1.00 deposit you get back after returning the ball and club
Par:
42
Difficulty: 8
Creativity: 5
Atmosphere: 9
With
the help of a good search engine and a little bit of luck, we stumbled on this
good, solid course. Everything at this
course, which is connected to a driving range, is golf oriented. The course is a member of the U.S. Miniature
Golf Association and provides many opportunities for golf-centered activities
such as birthday parties. The course
also pumps out some decent everyone-friendly music and the sound system doubles
as a P.A. system for announcements about the snack bar, etc.
As
for the course itself, the first thing you notice is that half the course is
handicap accessible, something we hadn't seen before. The beginning of these holes is open and the
holes themselves are wide and relatively flat.
The end of the holes has spaces in the bricks to allow wheels. This can be a bit frustrating because the
ball rolls out instead of bouncing back, but the good thing is that posted
course rules state that you don't have to take a penalty stroke if the balls
goes out on one of the wheelchair spaces.
The course is also well laid out and uses the lay of the land to the
utmost. The holes wrap around the
waterfall, which is the central point of the course, making good use of
different contours and elevation changes.
The grounds around the course are all well manicured and there is a
pleasant variety of shrubbery making the course very pleasant. The water also moves into a little pond down
by the first hole at a good clip, stirring up the water already there and
keeping it from being stagnant and nasty.
They also provide a small net to help you retrieve your ball should you
bounce it out the handicap openings and into the water.
The
holes themselves are quite difficult and most require a good deal of putting
skills. To keep your score low on this
course, one needs a good understanding of how to read greens and putt
appropriately. Although most of the
holes are forgiving and you can easily get one over par even if you don’t read
the green perfectly, there are some holes where missing a putt by an inch leads
to an easy 5 or 6 on the hole.
Naturally, there are some holes (the multiple level ones for instance),
where a low score is thanks to more luck than skill. Overall, it’s not the hardest course we’ve
played, but it does give you quite a challenge.
Also, unlike some of the courses we’ve played, this is a fun, positive
challenge created by a well-designed course, instead of a frustrating, negative
challenge created by a flawed and unmaintained
course.
The
holes are average in creativity. There
were a couple of multi-tiered holes that were of different design, but the rest
of the holes were standard fare. There
were just a few bumps and rolls in them, with the occasional wooden post or two
to obstruct the path of the ball. The
course also lacked a “win a free game” 18th or 19th hole,
which is one factor we have come to enjoy on miniature golf courses. Notwithstanding, as far as non-obstacle
courses go, this is a solid course well worth a couple trips a year, especially
if you live in the area.
2006 Update
We
played this course on the last weekend in April, and while it was a beautiful
day (and had been warm for some time), the water was
not on that day, which was a bit of a downer.
Also, there seemed to be more holes that we remember with two cups. I don’t know if some of them were meant to be
covered by rocks or other obstacles, but it seemed a bit excessive. We also noticed an abundance of flowering
plants on the course, which not only made the allergies scream, but also drew
an exorbitant amount of bees. This can
be quite tough if you have a group of small children. Other than that, there have been no changes
to the course and it seems to have been up kept fairly well.
Reviewed
by Pat and Mandy
Reviewed
in 2002 & 2006