Tower Ridge in Simsbury, CT, about 20 minutes from Hartford, is not a perfect golf course, but for the price of its green fees, it has enough good holes –- and a few excellent ones –- to make the cost/benefit proposition skew in the direction of benefit. And as the leaves begin to change color on Avon Mountain, which forms the backdrop for most holes at Tower Ridge, the club’s $30 weekday fees -– cart included -– on crisp autumn days will be too good to pass up.
Tower Ridge's side-of-the-mountain holes are set well above the Farmington Valley. The view is from the 7th green.
It isn’t quite autumn yet, but my round at Tower Ridge yesterday was a special bargain of $20 from one of those online golf tee time consolidators. I booked the 11 a.m. round at 8 a.m. the same morning and was paired with another bargain seeker. We caught the foursome in front of us for the first time on the 15th hole and eventually made it around in just over 3 ½ hours. (Thankfully, Mike didn’t spend more than a few seconds looking for hopelessly lost golf balls.)
Tower Ridge, which was designed in 1959 by respected New England architect Geoffrey Cornish, plays between the Farmington River on its western edge and up the lower slope of the Avon Mountain. Holes #5 through #8 –- three par 4s and a long par 3, respectively -- play parallel to the mountain, the rest up and down, providing uphill carries to small, firm greens and elevated tee shots and approaches to somewhat softer greens where the water drains down the hills. Fairways on the par 4s slope significantly from the higher level to the lower, and a shot to the middle of a fairway can bounce into the rough. The 8th hole sticks out as unusual, and interesting, in that it is a long par 3 from a significantly elevated tee to a green that is deeper than it is wide, and extremely difficult to hit. The rough to the left of the green is thick and sloped downward, and the hill to the right is steep. Its designation as the 11th hardest hole on the scorecard, which is low for a par 3, should be even lower; the straightforward and short par 4 1st hole noted as the 9th handicap hole seems off, comparatively speaking.
There is just one house facing the Tower Ridge golf course, and it is a beauty, overlooking the 6th green and the valley below.
I especially like the holes at the base of the mountain which put a premium on the placement of the tee shot in order to keep the ball out of the gnarly rough and away from draping trees that hang over the edges of the holes. The small greens on the 5th and 7th, the hardest and third hardest holes on the course, respectively, are perched up on hills and are very difficult to hit and hold. The 6th hole features a steep hill on the left that, at other times I have played the hole, kicked balls down into the fairway; but not on this day, as the rough was too thick to permit a bounce. The green on #6 is fronted by two nasty bunkers, and another one waits behind to catch any shot that rolls off the firm green.
My only sour note of the day occurred at the 10th hole, a short but uphill par 5 dogleg right where a solid drive hit straight at the middle of the fairway can bound through to the rough on the left. I hit my best drive of the day; it followed the shape of the fairway and landed in the bright sunlight middle right on the fairway. But when I approached my ball, I found it had bounded off a severe fairway mound into the right hand rough. I don’t typically quibble about golf course layouts, and I can’t believe this was a feature the nuanced designer Mr. Cornish would have built into the hole, but this seemed a rather dopey and unfair way to make a short hole tougher. In retrospect, the prudent play off the tee would have been a fairway metal, which seems pretty wimpy on a par 5.
Tower Ridge, which was a private club until about 15 years ago, shows some signs of a revenue struggle, with somewhat uneven cutting of the fairways, greens that showed bare spots around the peripheries, and cart path buckling that threatened to send me to the chiropractor a few times. A posted annual weekday membership for 2016 of $999 –- cart included! – may also be a sign of the day-to-day challenges to generate revenue. That said, if the okay conditions I found yesterday are maintained through 2016, that $999 will be a gigantic bargain. Play 10 rounds per month, and the average cost will be less than $15, cart included.
Looming over the golf course from the top of the mountain is Heublein Tower, named for the man who started the alcoholic beverage company of the same name, which was headquartered nearby. Local hikers can make the one-mile trek to the Tower from the other side of the mountain and enjoy stunning views of the Farmington Valley below to the west and the city of Hartford to the east. The views of the Valley from the golf course itself are significant, and certainly worth the modest price of admission.
The Heublein Tower looms over the entire golf course of Tower Ridge, including the par 5 14th hole.