Newton Hill is a fairly new, 18 hole, Chainstar-basketed course. I went here with a couple of friends to check it out, on what turned out to be a chilly, but almost a near perfect day for a couple rounds. First impressions: This thing really is a hill. A big one. If you feel like you need to get some work on your legs in, this in the place to do it. The course winds up and down and around the entire side, dropping you off feet from where you started. The holes average to be about 300(give or take) feet, with a couple of outliers(155 for the shortest and 420 for the longest). It looks like a lot of effort was put into getting this upland in order. Based on the number of times one of us tripped, they removed a good number of small(inch-ish thick) trees to open up the holes a bit. As you walk, keep your eyes open, but that tends to be the case in most of the courses one might play in a wooded area like this. I noticed a good split of left and right banked holes. More right then a lot of the courses I’ve play in the Mass/CT area. Which I found to be good for me, as it gave me plenty of opportunities to work on my(right hand/backhand) anhyzer. The signage was sufficient, but could use improvement(which is what I have heard is in the works). The same goes for the tee pads. Most(if not all — don’t remember for sure) have rubber mats but no framing, but that really isn’t an issue in my opinion. Just an aesthetics thing, which come summer, when the trees all have leaves again, doesn’t matter anyway since I can imagine the place being pretty enough. Overall, I don’t think too many of the holes really stand out, but it was definitely a solid course. The changes in elevation adding to the challenge on some holes, either forcing yourself to throw short and not over drive on the down slopes or making you put the extra bit into getting it up there. With some of the tighter gaps, it also works accuracy about more then those courses with the large open fields. Personally, I could see myself enjoying this course while getting a little bit of practice on some of the basics at the same time(hyzer /anhyzer /low, level, and straight). As it is, I’d say Newton Hill is a 3.5 star course, but I’m going with the 4 for the potential I see in it once it is completed. I am eager to add this nice new addition into my course rotation and look forward playing it again.
