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In golf, it’s usually bad news when you find yourself in the woods. But that may not be the case in Sudbury.
Tucked behind a fishing pond, and bordered by majestic pines, there’s a little-known golf practice facility in Sudbury, Massachusetts.
Don’t get your hopes up for Top Golf-caliber technology and amenities, and don’t expect to hit any full-length shots, if any shots at all. (More on that later.) But Sudbury’s golf facility has one key feature that no others can claim: the peace and quiet provided by the land at Sudbury’s Camp Sewataro property.
Whatever the practice facility lacks in modern golf technology, it more than makes up for it with one-of-a-kind features. But first… there’s some driving range history to cover.
Disappearing Golf Facilities
If you have been to TJ Maxx in the Sudbury Crossing plaza on Route 20, you were standing on land that was once occupied by a driving range and mini golf course. That business, the Bonnie Brae driving range, hasn’t been around since the fall of 1983, when it was closed to make way for the construction of the Sudbury Crossing shopping plaza.
Eventually the owner of that business sought to open a new golf facility near Chiswick Park, but those plans fell through.
Just a few years later, Sudbury’s Park and Recreation Commission endeavored to open a driving range at the Davis land on Route 117, but those plans (like many for the Davis land over the years) never came to fruition.
A driving range and mini-golf course just over the border in Marlborough also closed years ago, leaving Sudbury residents quite a distance away from a standalone, public golf practice facility. The remnants of the mini golf course can be spotted along the road outside the Big Apple restaurant on Route 20.
All the other nearby options are either at private country clubs like Nashawtuc Country Club or Concord Country Club; with the next-closest public option being the range at Stow Acres in Stow or Kohr Golf in Natick, though Kohr primarily operates via a membership model now.
If A Golf Facility Falls In the Woods…
When the Town of Sudbury acquired Camp Sewataro in 2019, the special election vote was robust, and quite close. The “yes” votes carried the day with 53.8 percent of the vote, with turnout getting close to 5,000. That turnout was immense, at least when compared to Sudbury’s Annual Town Election turnout, which is typically between 2,000 and 3,000 voters in recent years. Turnout for the Sewataro special election vastly exceeded the turnout in the 2023 Annual Town Election that included a ballot question for a school override.
Debate over the acquisition was heated at times, and the option to license the property to a camp operator was presented as a means to buy time for long term planning. But the long term planning never happened. The first term of the license was for three years, then it was extended for five years, and many of the specific amenities and facilities on the property faded into the background.
Many amenities and different pieces of equipment on the property are only put out during camp season, when much of the property is off-limits for residents. Once the season ends, they are put away in storage for the next camp season, making them “out of sight and out of mind” for most residents… many of whom may not realize they exist, or that they are Town-owned.
That appears to be the case with the golf practice facility at Sewataro, which is used during the camp season by campers only, but shut down and tarped over the rest of the year.
The golf practice facility includes a putting green with chipping bays, and two netted areas with hitting bays and mats.
The whole facility is tucked into the woods behind the fishing pond on the lower side of the property. It’s a short walk from the parking lot off of Haynes Road. All you need to do is walk either direction around the fishing pond and take the trail into the woods behind the pumping station. The golf facility is circled in red here:
Despite the location, which feels like it is deeply nestled into the woods, the grass growing around the artificial turf green is lush and well-manicured.
The netted hitting areas are rather small, offering little in the way of feedback to golfers beyond what they could get from hitting into a portable net in their backyards. Yet they offer a bit more space to practice chipping and pitching than the average Sudbury yard. What’s visible of the putting green suggests that you’re not going to get the truest of rolls with your putts.
While it’s not quite what most golfers would expect from a practice facility, as a youth-oriented short-game facility it is one-of-a-kind. There aren’t many exact comparisons for it, but the City of Waltham recently opened a mini golf course at the wildly popular 200 Trapelo property, which was greeted with much acclaim.
Mulligan?
Despite its unique appeal, the Sewataro golf facility is off limits for Sudbury residents and other visitors. Anyone can stroll through outside of camp season, but the putting green is covered with a tarp and the netted hitting bays don’t have any signage indicating that visitors can use them, or what rules govern their use.
Yet in the context of Sudbury’s golf history, the mere existence of a Town-owned golf practice facility partially fulfills the visions of the Park and Recreation Commission in the late 1980’s. Those commissioners finally have their “Town driving range” — even if it’s not yet being used in the way they had envisioned.