The Masters is a sign of spring, with a busy golf season ahead
Apr. 9—While Augusta National Golf Club is buzzing with the first major tournament of the year, The Masters, courses in southeastern Connecticut are gearing up for their own busy seasons.
"The Masters is a sign of spring," said Todd Goodhue, the head golf professional at Shennecossett Golf Course in Groton.
He had the tournament playing on a TV in the corner of the clubhouse.
The 125-year-old, 18-hole course is tucked into a fairly residential portion of Groton but gives players sight lines to the Thames River. Though it is open year-round, Goodhue said, Shennecossett's busy season begins in the spring.
"In the springtime we all start upticking," Goodhue said. "But ever since COVID we've been very very busy."
Goodhue said before the COVID-19 pandemic hit in 2020, the course would book roughly 31,000 rounds per year. Since then, the course is booking more than 40,000 a year. Membership to the course hovered just over 200 for a few years prior to the pandemic, Goodhue said, but reached 378 just last year.
"We've had one record year after another for the last three," Goodhue said, noting that people reacquainted themselves with the game as it was one of the few socially distant activities during the pandemic.
Lake of Isles in North Stonington has seen a similar uptick in business since 2020.
While Assistant Head Golf Professional and Tournament Coordinator Nicholas Spano did not have specific membership numbers, the 36 holes that surround the 90-acre lake have seen more players visit in the last three years, largely from the public and guests from its neighbor, Foxwoods Resort Casino.
"Golf has had a pretty good resurgence in the last couple years," Spano said. "Just a lot of new players after COVID."
Unlike Shennecossett, Lake of Isles closes for the winter. Since it first opened in 2005, the course closes for the year around Thanksgiving in November and opens as the weather warms in March. The course has been open for nearly a month in 2023.
The Rees Jones-designed Lake of Isles features two courses, one for the public and one for members, that take players through more than 900 acres of wooded countryside. Spano said the Parkland-style course, which means the natural landscape was more heavily impacted by an architect to build the course and flat fairways, has some of the best terrain in all of the region.
"You're really not going to find a course in new England that has the terrain that we offer, the holes that we offer, the green complexes, the fairways," Spano said.
Shennecossett offers players a more natural and open links-styled course, with rolling fairways. He said the wind, another indicator of a links course, can change the way the course plays each time, which keeps players interested and coming back to the course that prides itself on its historical presence.
"Here, you pretty well hit every club in the bag," Goodhue said.
Goodhue said one of the key characteristics of the course, designed by the famous Donald Ross, is the turtle-backed green on the fourth hole that provides a putting challenge to players to get their ball up the incline without falling back down the other side.
Both courses give credit to the grounds crews, which take care of the courses year-round.
Eric Morrison has been the golf course superintendent for Shennecossett for more than 20 years and has developed a better understanding of his course over the years, Goodhue said.
Recently, Morrison and his grounds crew switched their aeration method, which allows excess water to evaporate and roots to grow deeper on the greens, to a less intrusive way that does not removes small portions of the playing surface, also known as cores. The new method, typically done in the spring and fall, allows the greens to return to a more-normal playing surface in a week's time, compared to the three weeks it previously took.
Goodhue called the greens one of the more impressive portions of his course.
"He's found that that works really well for us," Goodhue said of Morrison's aeration method.
Kempersports, a golf-course management company, manages the grounds at Lake of Isles, and is lead by Director of Agronomy Cody Woods.
Spano said the course prides itself on how well it is kept and said the team is working on the course daily to adhere to their standards. He said the agronomy team allows players to play on one of the best-conditioned courses in the region, which is his favorite part about playing it himself.
"We just have a lot of dedicated guys that go out there and really take pride in their work," Spano said.
Though Tiger Woods was forced to withdraw from this year's Masters, a tournament he's previously won five times, these two courses in southeastern Connecticut are just getting started in 2023.
"We're all ready to go," Goodhue said.
