(July 1st) Day 26 – Portland Golf Course  Portland, CT     drove 95 miles

It is July 20th as I write this, so now I am 20 days behind. I am in Jefferson City, MO and I have a couple of hours to kill, so I'll try to write up two or three days (and now as I finish this post w/pictures it is September 7th and I'LL NEVER CATCH UP. But in time, I WILL finish blogging and Facebooking this trip!

Most cities named Portland actually have a "port" near them, but this inland Connecticut town (on the Connecticut River) does not as far as I can tell. The golf course here has four sets of tees ranging from 6184 to 4981 yards. I played the 5734 yard tees with a slope of 121 and a rating of 68.6. This is a par 71 golf course. Green fee & cart were $ 50.

While there is nothing special about this golf course, the maintenance was good and it is quite a fun course to play. Part of the fun were the three guys I played with. Two of them play together often (Art & Don) and the 3rd (Larry) had just played with them once before. Really a good group and I enjoyed golfing AND having a beer with them after the round. 

It was VERY helpful to play with locals the first time on this course as there are some holes you need to lay up on your tee shot or risk going through the fairway and into trouble. The course is not long, but has a good variety of holes. You are not always going up and down, but there are plenty of hills and sidehill lies to negotiate. I played better than I scored as I amassed 43 putts in this round. I could not read the greens and had seven three putts (NO one putts). That will certainly raise the final tally on anyone's scorecard.

The best news is that I picked up Margaret at the the Hartford airport after the round and we made our way back to Meriden after negotiating some nasty traffic traveling back south through Hartford. Hartford has merging freeways on the west side and truck traffic leaving down has to cross truck traffic going into town and of course, vice versa. That plus road construction made it a slow slog until we got south of the city.

We ate at a local sub shop/deli near our hotel in Meriden and I tried a grinder hoping it would be as good the one at the Green Valley CC in Rhode Island. Alas, it was disappointing, probably due to my new high standard for a grinder!

           Randy’s golf course             ratings          play again               could recommend           Price

Prairieview GC (Byron, IL)               5                 YES                            YES                        $

Wine Valley (Walla Walla, WA)         5                 YES                            YES                        $$$

Dakota Winds (Hankinson, ND)        5                 YES                            YES                        $$

The Links at Greystone (Walworth, NY)   4.5      YES                            YES                        $$

Raccoon Creek (Littleton, CO)         4.5                YES                           YES                        $$

Brooks Golf (Okoboji, IA)                 4                  YES                           YES                        $$

The Legacy (Springfield, TN)            4                  YES                           YES                        $

Awarii Dunes (Kearney, NE)              4                  YES                           YES                        $$ 

Lake Panorama Nat. (Panora, IA)      4                    no*1                         YES                        $$

Houston Oaks (Paris, KY)                  4                  YES                           YES                        $        

Brandon GC (Brandon, SD)               4                  YES                            YES                        $

Viroqua Hills GC (Viroqua, WI)        4                   YES                           YES                        $

Portland GC (Portland, CT)           4                   YES                           YES                        $

Green Valley CC (Portsmouth, RI)    4                   YES                            YES                       $$

Snow Hill CC (New Vienna, OH)      4                   YES                            YES                       $

Bear Slide GC (Cicero, IN)                4                     no                             YES                        $$

Lochmere G & CC (Tilton, NH)       3.5                  YES                           YES                       $$

Martindale CC (Auburn, ME)           3.5                  YES                           YES                        $$$  

Rivers Edge (Burley, ID)                   3.5                    ??                             YES                        $

Eastern Hills (Kalamazoo, MI)          3.5                  YES                           YES                        $

Martindale CC (Auburn, ME)            3.5                  YES                           YES                        $$$       

Birch Creek (Smithfield, UT)            3.5                    no                       good golfers only         $

Kimball Golf Club (Kimball, MN)     3                      no                               no                         $

Buffalo Golf Club (Buffalo, WY)       3                      no                               no                         $$

Pryor Creek (Huntley, MT)                 3                      no                               no                         $        Johnny Walker Course (there’s also a Country Club course, but you need to play with a member!)

The Brookside Club (Bourne, MA)    2                     no                                no                          $$

Jones Course (Wheeling, WV)           1                      no                                no                         $$$

*1 = would play again if a different yardage was offered, with slope and course ratings






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