Golf in Middletown

The nine-hole course at Copper Hill Golf Club is designed to welcome beginners while still challenging advanced golfers, an egalitarian approach that earned it the 2012 Walter Lowell Award for Public Service from the Connecticut Section PGA. Having founded the Golf Academy in 1994 and taken full control of the club in 2010, two-decade PGA pro Paul Banks runs the outfit as a welcoming environment where golfers can both enjoy the game and improve. In line with its emphasis on introducing the game to new players, Copper Hill hosts an extensive youth program, training up duffers as young as 5. Its extensive practice area comprises a 3,500-square-foot pitching and chipping green along with a four-tier driving range, where up to 32 club swingers can hone drives, approaches, and putter-juggling acts on grass tees.

Course at a Glance:

• Nine-hole, par 36 course
• Total length of 3,039 yards from the back tees
• Four sets of tees per hole
• Scorecard

Skyline Country Club is a semi-private club that welcomes golfers with sweeping views of the Berkshire mountains and glimmering waters that intersect the grounds. Elevation changes and blind tee shots are frequent throughout the 6,075-yard course, as seen on the 4th hole, which rewards precise tee shots of roughly 110–165 yards with an easy 110-yard shot to the green. The par 5 12th, the course's most difficult hole, forces players to drive onto a tight fairway along the straight 490-yard layout that ends with a false front, a greenside slope that often tricks golfers and sends balls rolling back toward the player like an industrial-grade pop-a-shot. After finishing the course with two consecutive par 4's, golfers can retire to the Club's pub for drinks and eats on the open-air deck, which offers views of the surrounding landscape.

Course at a Glance:

• 18-hole, par 71 course
• Total length of 6,075 yards from the back tees
• Three sets of tees per hole

Seasoned ace Jim Fenner steadies unstable swings and smoothens out wobbly putts with lessons tailored to individuals, groups, or players hoping to address specific ailments within their golf game. A veritable Johnny Appleseed of golf, the passionate pedagogue roams about courses and teaching centers throughout the greater Worcester area, spreading golf wisdom and burying dimpled orbs that soon blossom into VHS copies of The Legend of Bagger Vance. Clients can catch Jim refining pupils' motions at one of the area's outdoor ranges and courses on sunny days or remedying trust issues between clubs and their owner at the indoor golf simulator of The Perfect Game, where he hibernates during the off-season chill.

East Fishkill Golf Center's 26-acre, multisport facility awakens the sportsmanship of every visitor regardless of age or athletic prowess. The grounds cater to ball-strikers of all stripes, whether protecting the strike zone in 1 of the 11 batting-cage stalls, avoiding the waterfalls and elevation changes on the 19-hole miniature-golf course, or aiming for displaced UFOs on the 35-stall lighted driving range. A 12,000-square-foot indoor facility carpeted with astroturf houses a regulation softball infield complete with pitching mounds and a spectator viewing area.

Hickory Ridge Golf Club’s dense tree lines create tunnels of narrow fairways intersected by a meandering creek that comes into play on at least nine of the course's 18 holes. Players immediately find themselves myriad obstacles on the first hole, a 509-yard par 5 with a lateral hazard running the length of the left side and an elevated green with an out-of-bounds area summoning errant shots beyond the pin. After the initial hole, birdie opportunities abound on the front nine so long as players control their shots off the tee, make wise club selections on approaches to the green, and avoid penalty strokes for chop blocking unsuspecting caddies.

More difficult challenges await on the back nine, including tricky par 4s on holes 12 and 14 and long par 3s on holes 15 and 17. Before finishing the round, golfers must conquer the par 4 18th hole, which requires a long layup on the second shot and often sends unfocused golfers on their way with a bogey and a Kick Me sign as they complete the round.

Course at a Glance:

• 18-hole, par 72 course

• Total length of 6,704 yards from the back tees

• Course rating of 72.8 from the back tees

• Course slope of 130 from the back tees

• Four sets of tees per hole