Westport, CT

Sherwood Island State Park

3.325(based on 11 reviews)
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9 1
HyooMac
Diamond level trusted reviewer
Experience: 6.7 years 415 played 382 reviews
2.50 star(s)

Improved?

Reviewed: Updated: Played on:Feb 7, 2024 Played the course:2-4 times

Other Thoughts:

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*** REVISED AND UPDATED: 2024 ****


The 18 hole course has been redesigned since last playing there in late 2020. There's no signage other than a small overhead photo attached to the post at the first tee. The tees are still just grass, with the only indicator being a 4x4 post (now with just a magic markered numeral indicating hole number). uDisc has the new revised layout, and it's a necessity for navigating the course.


Rare Mach X baskets that seem to be mounted 6"-12" lower than standard height.


The improvements are to condense the footprint of the course a bit, and to move some holes away from busy park areas. These changes have removed a huge amount of walking, but they come at a cost: the first 11 holes now play up, down and across a couple of largely open fields with little in the way of trees or other obstacles. The only exception is #9 (formerly #2) which throws between two rows of mature trees. You'll have to contend with wind (the park is shoreside on Long Island Sound), and the holes are decent length: par 3's in the 250' - 250' range. But on a calm day, you're throwing darts on a big lawn.


The good news comes in the back third of the course: many of the existing best holes remain (and a few are tweaked with better basket positions). It's still park-style disc golf, but at least you're playing some elevation change, some chances of rollaways, and a few guarded greens.


If you played the old layout, you'll recognize 16 - 18. They were 7 - 9 before, and now they're welcome as good park holes to finish the round (especially the left-to-right sloping fairway and green on #18). It's a long walk back to the parking lot from 18.


Overall, in updating the layout I think they made the front half too easy (or too dull). But play definitely improves with the second half. And they redesigned to avoid picnic areas, walkways and other busy areas.


Judging from the number of regular and overflow parking lots, I strongly advise you to stay away from this place during the summer (and especially, to avoid the $20+ entrance fee!).

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3 0
jbaker
Experience: 10.1 years 40 played 6 reviews
4.00 star(s)

Pretty course with water view 2+ years drive by

Reviewed: Played on:Jun 11, 2016 Played the course:once

Pros:

- Ocean views
- Not crowded
- Very well kept up
- Nice baskets
- Variety of hole layout

Cons:

- Parking cost $22 / car (but biking is free)

Other Thoughts:

BIKING - Took Metro-North train to the Green's Farms station and biked from there to avoid paying parking fee!
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2 0
Scotty346
Experience: 10.8 years 21 played 5 reviews
2.50 star(s)

Boring but good practice 2+ years drive by

Reviewed: Played on:Sep 29, 2017 Played the course:once

Pros:

Good signage.
Nice water views from the parking lot.
Nice baskets.
Good to practice throwing long straight shots.
No parking fees (End of Sept).

Cons:

No teepads.
Boring layout...nearly every hole is an open, straight shot.
Quite a few shots you are throwing at (or through) picinic areas. Probably unplayable during busy summer days.

Other Thoughts:

Good practice for throwing long bombs but not technical at all. Got bored quickly.
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3 1
Mookie3519
Experience: 1 played 1 reviews
4.00 star(s)

Fun open hole beach course 2+ years drive by

Reviewed: Played on:Jul 27, 2016 Played the course:5+ times

Pros:

Beautifully maintained state park with Long Island sound as a backdrop. This course will challange you with distance and battling the wind of the beach. Holes are well thought out with a good risk reward benefit. The baskets are state of the art Mach x's( used at maple hill) plays quick for the size of the course. Tee signs look great!

Cons:

No teepads( but this course is in its infancy...teepads just don't appear on state land without time) Its a tough course to play in the summer on peak weekend days; this does not bother me because there is nothing you can do at a public state park in the summer( play in the morning or during the week!) I don't think it's a negative the entrance fee to the park, the fee is not to play discgolf. It's for the park in general; not disc golfs fault.

Other Thoughts:

Sherwood is a fun open course for the spring and fall where us northeast players can practice open holes with wind locally.
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1 3
Kaylen
Experience: 1 played 1 reviews
4.50 star(s)

Disc on the Sound 2+ years drive by

Reviewed: Played on:Jul 19, 2016 Played the course:5+ times

Pros:

Great scenery. Open course with superior signage with course maps on bag hangers. Terrific place for beginners. Lots of open space to work on flight dynamics. Park staff mow fairways regularly. beach access a plus with showers. Varied hole layout. Easy to find off exit 18 on I-95. Rarely crowded. Great place to learn disc golf skills.Course creators diligent about course design and upkeep.

Cons:

Tees not available but coming soon.
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1 1
markfohara
Experience: 19.8 years 6 played 5 reviews
3.00 star(s)

Sherwood Island State Parks 2+ years drive by

Reviewed: Played on:Jul 18, 2016 Played the course:once

Pros:

Good course, lots of open shots early and some slightly wooded ones later, this is a great course for beginner to intermediate players. It gives you the oportunity to make mistakes without much penalty

Cons:

The $9 parking fee kind of sucks, and it costs even more if you're from out of state. the mosquitoes and the goose poop kind of sucked too. They cover a good portion of the holes, if not the whole course.

Other Thoughts:

Genuinely fun and simple to play, a bunch of pokemon stops around too if you're into that. Good place to picnic too. I'm planning to go back in the fall when there's hopefully less bugs.
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2 0
adevuyst
Experience: 10 played 5 reviews
2.00 star(s)

Listless and lacklustre 2+ years drive by

Reviewed: Played on:Jul 10, 2016 Played the course:once

Pros:

This course is the only course in the area with a beach to swim at, which really has nothing to do with the course.

The course also seems to be perfectly mowed, which I assume is pretty consistent being in a state park.

Cons:

The parking fee on the weekend is outrageous, $22.00, and is the highest price I've ever payed for admission to a park.

Upon entering the ticket collectors at the front had no idea where the course started, and there is zero signage indicating a) the start of the course b) the location of the next hole from each basket.

The course has no teepads.

Most holes are around the same length.

Most holes are pretty straight, with very slight if not no variations in elevation, layout, angle, basket height, etc. Very boring and repetitive.

Half of the holes play through flat parking lots and over picnic tables that are populated with people having barbecues, rendering them unplayable.

Signage for holes is VERY small and indistinguishable from the parks signs indicating lot numbers/camp sites or whatever they were.

The baskets are also a pretty junky quality, although new.

Other Thoughts:

My experience at this course was pretty poor, and not from any subjective experience. Anyone who goes there on the weekend pays 22 bucks to essentially play the same hole over and over again through a poorly marked course of parking lots and park patrons with no teepads, tiny signage and crummy baskets, once you manage to find the first hole.

The courses only redeeming quality is that there is a beach AT the course, that you can essentially fall into when you (quickly) become bored of playing.
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3 0
charris414
Experience: 2 played 2 reviews
3.50 star(s)

CT Disc Golf on the Rise 2+ years drive by

Reviewed: Played on:Oct 2, 2015 Played the course:5+ times

Pros:

I've been a resident of Norwalk, CT for nearly 10 years, and when I first moved here with my wife, the only course in Fairfield County was Cranbury Park. Cranbury is in a league of its own when it comes to long, wooded, and technical. The installation of courses at Waveny Park in New Canaan and Veteran's Park in Bridgeport were similar in feel and design and were predominantly wooded and technical.

Sherwood feels like these courses' wide open younger brother. With 18 baskets, sign/bag posts at every hole, and recently installed tee bricks to define a legitimate spot to drive from, Sherwood will soon reach the ranks of elite CT disc golf along with Cranbury, Bridgeport, and Wickham Park.

The layout will play and feel easy on a beautiful calm day, but sitting on the Long Island Sound, when the wind whips up, disc selection, shot shaping, and putting will become paramount. Park staff were involved in the course creation and are actively involved in reducing safety hazards to players, limiting impacts by players to other park users, and protecting wildlife by limiting course access to certain areas of the park.

From October to April the park and the course are open and free to play. And given the fact that it is immediately off of I-95 at exit 18, it's easy to hit up on your way along the Boston/NYC/Philly corridor.

Lastly, the potential for longer tees and basket positions has been discussed with park staff and exists on a great many holes.

Cons:

As the current layout is not permanent, tees are currently just grass, sand, or dirt, although a few holes use park roads (ie: asphalt). With just over two months of traffic, the natural tee areas are already getting worn in, and provide significantly better traction than they did in July.

It maybe a year or two before a semi-permanent layout is decided upon and concrete/rubber tees installed. So while the tees are negative now, long-term they won't be.

Other Thoughts:

The Cranbury/Bridgeport golf clubs have combined much of their volunteer efforts to install just the second "wide-open bomber" course in the entire state after Wickham. Although a fall tournament is not currently planned as of this review, a Sunday morning league will be starting on Oct. 4th at 10am with a rotating format between doubles and singles. With appropriate scheduling (likely fall or spring to avoid high park usage months), any tournament will have the potential to use alternate tees to increase the overall length of several holes. And as a long-time tournament player, this reviewer's dream is a two-day high class B tier or A tier event utilizing Cranbury Park and Sherwood. Additionally, as this is the first course installed in a CT State Park, the possibility of installing courses in other low-profile parks with less usage just went up exponentially in my opinion. With a number of available parks in Fairfield County, the possibility of increasing course density to the point where a PDGA tournament like Bowling Green or even a Worlds could be held is now a reality.
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2 0
spencerbeckman
Experience: 31 played 3 reviews
4.00 star(s)

New layout is fun 2+ years drive by

Reviewed: Played on:Sep 29, 2015 Played the course:5+ times

Pros:

Beautiful setting for a course. Brand new baskets. Creative hole layouts. Requires a fair amount of different shot types. Long and challenging. More then anything, I like this course because it is very different from all the other courses in the area.

Cons:

Grass tees. When it rains, they are extremely slippery. Also on the weekends during the summer, the park can get very crowded. Most people have no idea what disc golf is, so they are no help in getting out of the way, or not picking up your disc to throw it back to you. My biggest problem with this course is that because it is located at a beach, the park charges a lot to park during the summer. Especially on the weekends. If you aren't a Connecticut resident, it is $13.50 just to enter. That's just not worth it to me. I can play for free at plenty of other courses nearby.

Other Thoughts:

All in all I like this course a lot. When they aren't charging to park, I'm there once a week at least. They have plans in the next year or two to add permanent tee pads, when this happens, I'll rate this course a 4.5. For now im calling it a generous 4 out of 5. Its probably more of a 3.5, but I like it's uniqueness and i love playing a round at the beach, you can't beat it.
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4 0
chikago12
Experience: 10.7 years 49 played 7 reviews
4.00 star(s)

Potential to be one of the best courses in CT 2+ years drive by

Reviewed: Played on:Aug 27, 2015 Played the course:once

Pros:

- Situated in a picturesque state park. Really cool views of the beach throughout the round.

-Big, mature trees to shape lines. Not like typical CT golf at all where you're weaving through a bunch of smaller trees.

-Tons of variance in hole design. Big anny's, hyzers, flicks, turnovers, even a hole that really wants a roller.

-16,17, and 18 are just awesome ways to finish out a course. 16 is a short par four up and over a hill to a beautiful ocean view. Then 17 you come back towards a basket in a cool green along a rock wall. 18 is a great way to finish a round, a big, really long hole to a tight little green.

-Manages to be tight without being suffocating like some CT courses. You can't just throw it anywhere, but it's open enough to make you feel like you can actually throw it.

Cons:

- No teepads or signs as of yet, and it's very hard to get around without a map. If you have a map though, it's really easy to navigate from one hole to the next.

-I honestly can't think of a con when it comes to the hole design. It might be a bit on the easy side for someone who can throw 400+. Bogeys are going to be pretty rare at this course, as it's pretty easy to get up and down even after throwing it into a tree.

-Kind of expensive to play. 9 dollars to get into the park, or six dollars after 4. That's a lot for a course that isn't quite done yet.

Other Thoughts:

This course is a delightful change of pace from the usual CT course. It need a year or two to sink in, for teepads to be built, etc, but once all that stuff happens, this will challenge Wick as the best course in Connecticut.
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3 0
S. Flavius Mercurius
Experience: 12.2 years 278 played 10 reviews
2.50 star(s)

Beautiful Park, Course with Great Potential 2+ years drive by

Reviewed: Played on:Aug 22, 2015 Played the course:once

Pros:

Park is huge and absolutely gorgeous, with many amenities to offer: restrooms, showers, water fountains, picnic benches, grills, beach access. Grounds are well manicured. Has posts with bag hooks and Mach 3 baskets. Some great scenic views as you play through. A few clever pin placements and nice use of trees force shot shaping on a few holes and keep things interesting. A mix of turns and some elevation changes on a few, but mostly flat.

Cons:

Course is brand new, only open a few weeks so this review is aimed for the curious. There's no signs or tee pads yet. Navigation is a little tricky. We couldn't find all of the holes, or even where it began, but pretty sure we played 4-14 to intended design. Some of the bag posts had the hole number scrawled in pencil, so this provided some clues. We downloaded the course map but that only seemed to further confuse the issue (it was dated 2010). Staff and park rangers were very friendly and nice, but couldn't offer any helpful advice as to the layout. A few holes will be difficult to play with park patrons and their cars too close, most of them completely ignorant of the game. Geese excrement minefield on a few holes. Parking is about $10 week day for CT residents, over $13 on the weekends (Visa or MC accepted).

Other Thoughts:

Bring the suit and towels, charcoal and food, make a day of it. Bring the sunscreen, too, because many holes are open. Bring the bug spray, too. Doesn't look like they're there, and you won't see them, but they will find you. Course will benefit from some of the basics as it develops: some signage, an updated map and next tee indicators, and then the rating I gave would adjust accordingly. Nice to have another option for 18 holes in the CT disc scene, and a beautiful one at that.
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