When Bloomfield, CT’s Gillette Ridge Golf Club opened in 2004, players and other reviewers savaged it for its degree of difficulty and iffy conditions. The Arnold Palmer designed course, which threads its way through an office park and community of town homes, was unfriendly for any but the straightest-longest-hitting players. Course managers decided that Gillette Ridge’s survival was a matter largely of removing some of the treachery around the greens, specifically the parade of bunkers that made greens in regulation nearly impossible for non-professionals. Today, less is definitely more at Gillette Ridge, with the removal of bunkers that were just too penal. Gillette Ridge is challenging but it can take its place among the most imaginative of the upscale daily fee courses in the Hartford/Springfield area. And for those looking for a New England home on a course for the warm weather months, the reasonably priced adjacent residential community would pair up nicelywith a winter home in the southern U.S. Best of all, for anyone who works in one of the nearby corporate offices, a home in Gillette Ridge puts them literally steps from both work and play.
Bloomfield has become something of a daily-fee golf destination in recent years, what with the openings of Gillette Ridge and Wintonbury Hills (see cover story this issue), a stunning municipal course. With a rolling design donated to the town by Pete Dye, Wintonbury Hills, like Gillette Ridge, is just 15 minutes from Bradley International Airport and an equal distance from the nation’s insurance center, Hartford. Visiting corporate managers have been known to disembark at Bradley and sneak in a round at one course or the other before heading for a meeting downtown. Wintonbury had the clear bragging rights until Gillette Ridge’s recent renovation eliminated severely sloped bunkers that made rollups to most of the firm greens impossible. Gillette Ridge is by no means a tiger turned pussycat; after a round there, I’d say it is more a puma or mountain lion or something like that. It rewards good shots, punishes bad and provides the extra-added attraction of playing between office buildings. Nowhere do the buildings come anywhere near the field of play, but they do occasionally provide some distant aiming lines; if the angle of the sun is just so, the glare off the glass windows can force you to keep your head down.
The pleasantly designed townhouses only come close to the course along the tee boxes at the 17th hole. Otherwise the real estate is a couple of hundred yards away at its nearest point. GDC Homes, which has been in business for 45 years, developed the Greens at Gillette Ridge, a group of town homes with prices beginning in the mid $300s, and single-family homes that begin in the $500s. Amenities include a clubhouse with fitness center, lounge and outdoor heated swimming pool.
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