Stonehedges Golf Course & Banquet Facility, Groton, NY

One of the worst experiences of my life. I've never experienced such racism, incompetency, and negligence in my life. Strike #1: On arrival, my group of friends and I were immediately told that there were no carts and we have to walk our 9. While we had no problem with walking, it was a little curious with the full row of karts in the background. While waiting for the first hole, we saw that row of carts decreased as people lined up behind us in them. Also, the staff member helping us was wearing a broken mask that didn't even cover their nose, so like, what's the point buddy??? Strike #2: We were moving as a group of 6, but only 4 of us were actively playing. Staff told us that we would have to split up into two 3s since the max per hole in golf is 4 (because of golf). On multiple occasions, the staff went out of their way to only communicate with the white male members of our party. I don't feel like I need to explain that anymore. Before full-on leaving, I decided to go back and ask for a kart or a refund. After making a big fuss, one of the staff gave us a kart for free, which ended up breaking down on the next hole. The only positive thing about this day was one of the staff members approached again but with a new kart, thankfully. So they get a star for that. Strike #3: Several patrons went out of their way to harass us as we were going through the nine. One golfer approached us (unmasked, no doubt), verbally assaulting us, asking what we were doing while we were troubleshooting our broken cart. Even though this is a public course open to everyone, many felt particularly entitled to pushing us along. Apparently, in golf, you can't play 3 people out of one bag, in fact, it's pretty much blasphemous. I have video proof of one of the encounters just in case people want to tell me different. If you're not a conventional white cis-het male, I would not recommend this golf course. In fact, STAY AWAY, it's really not worth the trauma. If this is just the culture of golf, I'm glad this experience ruined it for me, so I'll never try it again.

Walking in the door, there is a quaint looking bar/dining area. Nothing special, but cute and rustic almost. The man that helped me was very friendly! $12 for 9 holes; $18 for 18. The course was extremely windy that day (~15mph) and it was opening day for the course. As a result, I can't speak much to the maintenance of the links. As expected, mud and puddles were prevalent, at no fault to the course however. Nothing was mowed yet, so every shot was like shooting from the rough. Again, for the first open day of spring, this is almost expected. The course layout itself is odd. I played from the white tees and 5 out of the front 9 pins are hidden from the tee box. I personally did not find the greens to be too difficult, but maybe I was just having a good putting day for once. Overall, not a bad course, but not one of the nicer ones I've played either. Then again, for $18, it's not a bad value by any means.

I'll be sure to visit again when the conditions are better and edit this review!