Today I traveled to Storrs to play Villa Hills Golf Course. This nine-hole par-3 course has a beautiful setting among the trees on rolling hills. The greens are very small (so small that I didn't hit a single green on my round), averaging about 800 square feet. Unfortunately, these greens don't have the correct type of grass for the putting surfaces, which is why they can't be cut short enough. These greens are like the kind of very slow temporary greens that are simply closely-mowed fairways, where the ball hops more than rolls. It reminded me of when, as youngsters, my brother and I would sink tin cans in the backyard and cut the lawn as low as our rotary mower would go: not exactly a smooth speedy putting surface.

The tees are composed of driving range mats, which may or may not be level. Although you might be able to tee up near the mats, it would be more likely on dirt than on grass. The hole lengths, ranging from 65 yards to 185 yards, are accurately marked. The 150-yard third hole, which plays over a pond, was my favorite.

So, is this a good course for beginners? Unfortunately, no, because the line of flight from tee to green is too tight on most holes due to the encroaching tree branches. And experienced players will dislike the tee mats and the extremely slow greens. So in spite of a decent routing and friendly staff, I can't think of any type of player who would enjoy Villa Hills in its present condition.

It was a fast round because I was the only one on the course. I managed to get up-and-down just twice on these tiny bumpy greens, shooting a 10-over 37.

I was rained out of golf this past weekend, but on the previous weekend I played Laurel View CC in wonderful late winter weather. This is the time of year that I normally play Laurel View, because it is usually one of the earliest inland courses to open. Each year I've been able to observe the continual enhancements that have been made over the past ten years. The drainage throughout the course has been significantly improved, although the eighth hole could still use some help in that regard. Bunkering has also been revamped on several holes. The ponds that front the 12th and 14th greens are big improvements over the marshes that were there years ago. The latest changes include tree removal throughout the back nine to open up the course more. Most of these changes make this course more friendly to the high-handicap player and improve the visuals on the course.

Laurel View begins with the easiest hole on the course, a short par-4 that can give an aggressive long-hitter an eagle putt right out of the gate. An accurate, well-placed drive is required on the par-4 third in order to avoid the unseen diagonal pond that lies between the landing area and green. The par-5 fourth demands an accurate drive, but then lets up until you reach the testy double-tier green. The extra-long par-4 fifth (479 yards from the tips) is complemented by the extra-short par-4 sixth. You'll probably need a wood to reach the well-bunkered par-3 seventh that shares a huge green with the ninth hole. There's a new willow tree that replaces the dead sentinel tree before the green on the par-5 eighth, making the hole more fair but maybe a little less interesting than it had been. The uphill par-4 ninth caps off this challenging nine.

The new back tee on the par-4 tenth will add a few yards to this short hole, which provides a breather before the par-5 eleventh, where accuracy is required on every shot. The landing area for the tee shot on the eleventh is cut into a left-to-right slope. If you miss the fairway to the right, your ball could roll down into a rotten lie among the trees. One strategy is to aim left and hope that your ball bounces out of the left rough into the fairway. Or you could choose to tee off with less than a driver, but you'll still need an accurate second shot to stay safe.

The twelfth is a beautiful par-3 over water, while the thirteenth is another short par-4 with a blind tee shot. (Be sure to check that the group ahead has reached the green before teeing off.) The par-5 fourteenth is my favorite hole. At 470 yards (from the Blue tee) a long drive can catch the downslope, leaving you with a downhill iron second shot into the green. As you start entertaining the idea of an eagle opportunity, the concern over the pond at the right front of the green can mess with your head as well. It seems that whenever I have caught the fairway with my drive, my second shot can be anything from a 3-wood to a 9-iron, but I've still only birdied this hole once.

The fifteenth is another tough uphill par-4, while the sixteenth plays back down the hill and requires more accuracy than length off of the tee. The finishing par-4 is a dogleg-left that plays uphill. There's a single tree in the natural direction of play which you have to avoid by going left, right, or over with something less than a driver.

Playing from the Blue tees, I only gave away one ball on my round of 44 and 43 strokes. I had a lot of pars with some 7's thrown in, but no birds. Playing the Black tees would add another 470 yards to the round, but I've never tried them because the Blues are a tough enough test for me.

With the exception a few partially washed-out bunkers, the course was cleaned up and ready to go when I played it eleven days ago. Even though the greens could be described as "tans" then, putts still ran ran true and at a normal speed. There were too many unreplaced divots on the eighth hole, but overall I was satisfied with the conditions of the course.

Carts are required on weekends until 3pm during the regular season. I enjoy the strenuous walk, including the cardiac hill on the fifteenth. Laurel View is a great test of golf skill and decision-making, making it a great battle ground for match play. The constant improvements are making  the course better each year. 

Yesterday seemed like a decent day for some late-winter golf, in spite of an early morning dusting of snow. Temperatures were warm enough to erase that dusting, but I don't know whether any courses were open. Shennecossett's website said that their course was closed, and the Winter Golf page on the CTGolfer site had no new entries regarding open courses. If Shenny wasn't open, then probably no course was. (Shennecossett did open today, however.)

Today was a windy, but rather sunny day. Though the grass isn't a true green, it sure feels like golfing weather. The calendar says March, and we all want to believe the 50-degree forecasts for next weekend. Plus, the sun doesn't set until after 5:30pm. And in two weeks, sunset will be nearly 7pm.

Meanwhile, I'm biding my time by taking divots out of my backyard turf to groove my swing. This is an excellent time to take a lesson or two at a practice range. It's better to try to make changes to your full swing at this time of year than waiting until mid-season.

By the way, my bathroom scale says I need to play golf for my health. In December, I didn't play at all and put on 3 pounds that month. With just one round of golf in January, I dropped 3 pounds. A golfless February (and a lot of munchies) brought me back up 5 pounds. I need some golf this month.

So in spite of unfavorable weather and unfavorable course conditions, true golf enthusiasts (nuts, that is) will be playing sometime in March. For many of us, it's just an itch that has to be scratched.

Winter in Connecticut is the season to bide your time with with a good golf book. There are instructional books, biographies of golf pros, books about famous and picturesque courses, golf joke books, etc. But my favorite books tend to focus on the mental side of golf, and game management during a round. Bob Rotella's Golf is Not a Game of Perfect really opened my eyes several years back, and has been particularly helpful in improving my success in club tournament play.

On the instructional side of golf, I like Dave Pelz's Short Game Bible. But his putting books, Putt Like the Pros and Dave Pelz's Putting Bible, have helped the physical part of my game more than any other. Pelz takes a very scientific approach to the game to convince you why you should try his methods. He has a new book out about game management, with the long descriptive title of Dave Pelz's Damage Control: How to Save Up to 5 Shots Per Round Using All-New, Scientifically Proven Techniques for Playing Out of Trouble Lies. I haven't read it yet, but it will probably be next up on my reading list. I've read well over a dozen instructional books on the full swing, but I can't say that any of them has had a long-lasting effect on my game.

Right now I'm into The Inner Game of Golf by W. Timothy Gallwey. I think that every golf instructor should read this book to learn how to more effectively teach golfers to improve their full swing without messing up their heads. It promotes the idea of learning to feel your swing instead of thinking about the parts of your swing as you take a stroke, thus avoiding "paralysis by analysis," so that you have a better chance to "stay in the zone."

Feel free to add a Comment with your favorite winter golf reading. 

No, it wasn't quite like mid-summer golf conditions, but today was a great day for January golf. The weather was decent, with only a light breeze and temperatures in the forties. Hartford's Goodwin Golf Course rates are so inexpensive right now that if you chose to walk off after a poorly played nine holes, you would still feel like you got a good deal despite less than perfect course conditions.

Speaking of conditions, at Goody they were better than I had expected.  Even after the heavy rain earlier in the week, I never had to improve my lie anywhere on the course. Not that there weren't wet areas, but those generally were not in landing areas. Most cups were half-filled with ice water, but no pins were frozen in place. Greens rolled nearly as well as in prime summer conditions, although there were a few grapefruit-size holes on the seventh green. Even though the tee markers were usually at the front of the tees, the staff at Goody allows you to play from anywhere on the tee. (That may not be the case at many courses.) With the exception of the nearly grassless 17th tee, the tees were in reasonable shape for this time of year.

The true roll of the greens really helped my game, as I had no 3-putts and 27 putts total. There were a few hooked drives that bounced off of trees and onto the fairway: the kind of good fortune that I wish could be saved for a club tournament. I had teed off on the back nine a little past one o'clock with two Goody regulars, and we had a short wait on every hole for the groups ahead. Finishing that back nine in a little over two hours, I was glad there was no one in front of me for the front nine. That way I could jog with my push cart to stay a little warmer and finish my round well before sunset.

I rotated six golf balls, just keeping them in my pockets to warm them. I find that I lose about ten percent of my distance at forty degrees. That's what I was banking on when choosing my iron on the seventh tee, shooting at a front pin placement over the no-longer-frozen pond that fills the entire void between the tee and green. It was a tense thrill to see no splash there. The second (a par-4 that requires a long drive over a pond) and seventh holes are my favorites at this course.

With my good putting stroke and fortunate bounces off of trees, I shot 39 on each side with two birdies, which is excellent for me any time of year. Despite the fact that the course is only 6000 yards from the back tees, it's a decent challenge from the back of the tee boxes at this time of year. Give Goody a try this winter. 

The clubs and golf shoes are next to the door, ready to be loaded into the car. Six golf balls have been warning on on the heating register. Last night's forecast said that the wind chill at Shennecossett should be above 30 degrees by 9:00 this morning. Some light rain or snow was predicted for around noon or 1:00pm. For me, that's borderline weather for some winter golf. And since I haven't played any golf since November 25th, it is time to get out there. The Mapquest directions to Shenny and the coupon from the Shennecossett website are now printed and stuffed into my golf shoes.

As my morning oatmeal cooks on the stove, I checked the updated weather report. Everything has changed! Instead of the warmer southerly wind off of the Atlantic, the wind is from the west, bringing in the snow and colder temperatures much sooner. In fact, at my expected 8am departure time, the snow is already falling at my Meriden home. I have to face it: no more golf for 2009.

I usually try to get out for a monthly round of golf during the winter whenever the conditions are bearable. For me, that means a wind chill temperature that isn't below 30 degrees, and a course that is nearly free of snow. I have two main reasons for playing in winter: First, I need the exercise, and second, I want to be somewhat realistic about my golf game.

This second point is important. The longer the span of time between rounds of golf, the better my golf skill gets--in my mind, that is. If I didn't play at all over the winter, I'd be teeing up in April expecting pars on every hole, with a few birdies thrown in. But that's just not reality for my game.

So when the weather report looks favorable, I usually check out the Winter Golf Message Board on the CTGolfer website. If entries there aren't recent, then I check the daily snow depth report at the National Snow Analyses website (http://www.nohrsc.nws.gov/nsa) to see if there's anywhere nearby that isn't covered in snow. If that looks favorable, then I'll call the courses that are frequently good bets to be open, like Laurel View, Shenecossett, and Fenwick .

There was a span of time (March 2006 through December 2008) that I played golf in Connecticut in every month. The statewide snow cover last January ended that streak. I don't travel to the Carolinas or Florida to play, but several years back I made a run to New Jersey just to get in 18 holes when Connecticut was totally covered in the white stuff.

So now I'll just compete with Tiger to see which one of us will be on a golf course first in 2010.

If you still play golf in the cold of winter, there are two potential problems with your golf ball: it may not fly as far as in the midst of summer, and it may feel like your whacking a rock. You can easily lose more than 15% of your usual distance while your hands are being numbed by the vibration at contact.

One solution is to use a low compression golf ball. It has a softer feel and may go farther on a colder day than the rock-solid high compression ball. A ball that has "soft" or "lady" in its name will more likely be a low compression ball. A high compression ball is more likely to have "distance" in its name. A high compression ball will fly farther in normal temperatures, but may be more affected by the cold than a low compression ball.

A better approach is to use warm golf balls. The simplest method is to keep a golf ball in your pants pocket (to keep it warm) and switch it with the one you're playing after each hole. That will help to some degree.

However, when the temperature is in the thirties, more drastic measures may be necessary. An insulated container that is large enough to hold 18 golf balls and a hot water bag can do the job for an entire round. A good hand-warmer can replace the hot water bag for a more compact version. Just remember that these artificial methods of warming a golf ball aren't legal for tournament play during the regular golf season because they're not allowed by the Rules of Golf during the round. (Warming them before a round is legal, though.) See Decision 14-3/13.5.

And remember, for your most enjoyable winter golf, be sure to keep yourself warm on the course.

Last week I had the opportunity to play the Red and Blue nines at Tumble Brook Country Club with my friend Rob Josephson, Rob's son Kevin, and Kevin's CCSU teammate, Eric Hawerchuk. Kevin and Eric play on Central's golf team, and they were playing an intra-team match against each other.

Tumble Brook is an old New England parkland course. The Red nine, designed by Willie Park, opened in 1924, and the Orrin Smith-designed Blue nine was opened in 1949. The Green nine, a George Fazio layout, opened in 1970. Mark McCumber updated the fairway bunkering, several green complexes, as well as tees. This renovation was completed in 2005.

This is a well-maintained course all around. The greens crew was ahead of the fall leaves, and each green was free of all the debris that normally lands on them this time of year. To top it off, each bunker was very nicely edged.

The greens are the course's best defense. A missed green frequently leaves you with an uphill or downhill chip or pitch. Most greens are tilted just enough to make it difficult to know just how much your ball will break. The speed isn't slick, but just a little faster than average.

Although you can use a driver on nearly all of the par-4s and par-5s, longer hitters will need to let up on the par-4 12th, where a long drive could end up in the brook that crosses the fairway. There's a pond to carry on the par-3 13th, but that is more of a scenic amenity than a physical obstacle. The par-5 15th provides the best risk-reward opportunity. To reach this 528-yard hole in two, the second shot must carry a stream that crosses 30 yards before the green while also avoiding the pond to the left. The round ends with an uphill par-3 in full view of a potential gallery at the clubhouse.

Kevin and Eric's match was a contrast in styles. Kevin is a steady fairways-and-greens player, whereas Eric is a scrambler. Kevin was 4-under after nine, leading by several holes. But Eric never gave in no matter how many times a drive left him with a tree between his ball and the green: he was two down after 16, but won the last two holes to draw even after 18. (Eric was even-par for the round, and Kevin was 1-under.) Eric finally took the match on the 20th hole. It was fun to play along with these talented collegians, and Rob is no slouch either. I provided the sideshow act with my score of 96.

Having the course practically to ourselves, we played easily under four hours for the 5.1 mile walk. Tumble Brook is a very nice private course that is expertly maintained. I was pleased to have the chance to play it.

In my review of the Red Course at Tunxis Plantation, I indicated my wish for greens free of pine needles and other debris, and more leaves removed from the rough. My high expectations hit a nerve with Kevin, who employed his sarcastic wit in his Comment to imply that I am asking too much of course superintendents and their crews.

Kevin has a good point. At this time of year, the maintenance team has plenty to do. The grass is still growing, there's aerating to be done on all of the turf, the irrigation systems need to be drained, there's always some special project that needs to be completed, and then there are acres and acres of leaves to be dealt with. How can I expect them to do it all?

Here's my hope: that golf facilities would make the choice to clear off greens as needed, especially on the weekends when there are more people playing. If a little bit of staff overtime means many more satisfied customers, then everyone wins in the long run.

I must admit that few players go out of their way to let the staff know how they appreciated the playing conditions when they are excellent. And we are quicker to complain if the course is not everything that it could be. So if your favorite course is doing a great job on their fall clean-up, let us all know about it. They deserve the appreciation and our patronage.

Alas, there was no golf for me this weekend. I just had too much of my own fall clean-up to complete.

I began November with a round at the Red Course at Tunxis Plantation. The Green and White Courses are each 18-hole layouts, but the Red is a par-35 nine-holer. It is the original course at Tunxis, built in 1962.

The Red is quite flat, as are all of the Tunxis courses, and is kept in very nice condition. The course seems to drain well, as I encountered no excessively wet areas, even a day after a good soaking rain. The sand bunkers are in good shape, but I think that they could use another inch of fresh sand.

The second and ninth holes are gentle doglegs, but the remaining holes are all absolutely straight. The design is a bit on the plain side, as none of the holes stood out as being exceptionally memorable, but there is a good variety of hole lengths. The Farmington River runs down the left side of the third and fourth holes, but it doesn't pose much of a threat for most players. A small stream cuts across the first and ninth holes, and a carry over a pond is necessary on the seventh hole, but those are obstacles only for players who lack length off of the tee. There is also a small water hazard to the right of the second green. Most fairways have a bunker near the landing area, and each green has at least one bunker.

The fairways were cleared of leaves, as was most of the rough. You generally have to hit your ball into a more densely wooded area to lose your ball among the leaves (as I did on the second hole), but there were a few places in the rough where you might need a leaf rake to find your ball. Some of the greens had a significant amount of pine needles, more than you would want to take the time to remove from your putting line. On the par-4 sixth hole, my ball was on the fringe forty feet from the hole with a lot of long pine needles scattered across my path to the hole. Although I wished I had a leaf blower to remove them all, I just hit my ball extra firmly and watched it trickle into the left side of the hole for my only birdie of the round. (Sometimes luck wins out over imperfect conditions.)

So I would grade the debris-removal on the Red Course as average. To improve autumn play, the pine needles should be blown off of the greens and the leaves removed from the rough and nearby wooded areas.

There are mostly singles, twosomes, and threesomes on the course at this time of year, so play moves along at a good pace. It not far from a green to the next tee, so the overall walking distance measured at 2.6 miles for nine holes. I had just one par to go along with the bird, to finish with a 47. I guess my better rounds are waiting for next season. But I'll keep playing while the grass is still green.