Hamden’s Andy Taddei Jr. may not be a blue blood, a pro or a scratch golfer, but that doesn’t mean he can’t get as much enjoyment as anyone from a day or two, or maybe a couple of hundred days, on the courses of Connecticut.
He has, matter of fact, crisscrossed our fair state for years on a quest to play every public golf course within these borders.
“I got hooked on golf about 25 years ago; fell in love with it and the idea just came to me,” Taddei said during a morning chat at the 19th hole at The Vue, formerly Laurel View in Hamden, where he plays in a league. “I thought, ‘That would be a really neat thing, to try to play every public course in Connecticut, if possible. Why not give it a try?’ So for the last 25 years, I’ve sort of hacked away at it.”
One tee time at a time, Taddei reports he has crossed 97 public courses off his list, some of which no longer exist, with one to go: Griffith E. Harris GC, “The Griff,” in Greenwich. And he plans to get there later this month to complete the mission. Including private courses, Taddei estimates he’s played on 126 different layouts in Connecticut, with a number of private courses he has not been able to get onto. After “The Griff” the game and adventure will go on for this “Everyman of The Links,” a self-taught wandering weekend warrior who now, as a retired high school teacher and basketball coach, he has weekdays free, too.
“I don’t know if there’s anybody else who can say he played every public course in Connecticut,” said Taddei, who has a bag full of scorecards and two-page list of courses played. “… Not that it’s a big deal.”
A man and his scorecards. Hamden’s Andy Taddei Jr. has been on a 25-year quest to play every public golf course in Connecticut. He played 97, with one to go. (Dom Amore/Hartford Courant)
Well, if there are others who have done it, I’m sure I’ll be getting email all week.
So what makes a good course?
“It has to be in at least decent shape and have a good feel to it,” he said. “Take Fenwick in Old Saybrook (the state’s oldest public course), it just lifts your spirits.”
So let’s take the tour with Taddei. His favorite public courses include, in no particular order:
Lake of Isles at Foxwoods, (“Every hole is its own experience.”)
Richter Park in Danbury, Wintonbury Hills in Bloomfield, (“You feel like you’re in New Hampshire.”)
Mohegan GC in Baltic; Topstone in South Windsor, (“It’s got tobacco sheds on some of the fairways, a nice atmosphere.”)
“Here’s a wild card,” he said. “Rolling Meadows in Ellington is a hidden gem.”
Simsbury Farms, Great River in Milford (“One of the tou,gher courses you’ll play in Connecticut.”)
Connecticut National in Putnam: (“Before you get there, you’re going through cornfields and you’re wondering, ‘Where is this place?’ It’s a little quirky, but I played particularly well there, so I’m partial toward it.”)
Whitney Farms in Monroe, Cedar Knob in Somers, Yale in New Haven, (“Iconic holes on that course.”)
“Here’s another one,” Taddei said. “Longshore in Westport. You drive in and the whole place is a park, people are walking their dogs and some of the holes are near the water. It’s great.”
Some are only nine holes like Sleeping Giant in Hamden, where he started, or Indian Springs in Middlefield, among his favorites. Some are just great values, like Airways in Suffield. “We played 18 there once for $39 a piece,” he said.
The fastest greens he’s ever played? New Haven CC.
Taddei, 60, played baseball at Hamden High, and for a short time at ECSU. He worked with his father, a carpenter, then taught social studies in the tech school system for 35 years, and coached boys basketball at Platt Tech-Milford, Watertown and Bullard-Havens in Bridgeport.
Before retiring from Wilcox Tech in Meriden last August, Taddei played his golf when school was out, a few new courses a summer.
“During the COVID year 2020, when all you could do was golf, I think I played 27 new courses that year,” he said. “And me and my friends took rides all over and tracked down these obscure parks, nine-hole courses.”
He never took a golf lesson, which he sort of regrets, and it took years to make his old baseball swing into a golf swing. Now Taddei says he is a 9-handicap, and he’s got stories, like a hole in one on the 12th at The Vue on his first shot of a scramble tournament.
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“I step up to the tee and think, ‘Just get the ball on the green, you can’t start a scramble with a bogey,” he said. “I flushed the 8-iron, lands by the pin, rolls back in.”
He’s never broken a club in frustration, “But I’ve had some rounds where everything goes wrong. At the championship last year at Grassy Hill (in Orange), one of the rounds I shot a 99. I walked away, I could not explain it. The next day, I went back to the same course and shot an 80.”
The best round he’s ever played was in a league finals at The Farms in Wallingford, where he shot a 76 to help his team win the championship. Once, at Madison CC, he missed a lot of greens, but thanks to his short game, he said, he chipped in twice and putted only 21 times in 18 holes.
His fantasy foursome would include Tiger Woods, Jack Nicklaus and Jordan Spieth, and he would just watch and pick their brains, like he used to admonish his students to do.
“Jordan Spieth seems like the kind of golfer we can all relate to. He analyzes himself, he’s so transparent, the kind of golfer you root for,” Taddei said.
If Andy Taddei Jr. sounds like you or me on the links, that’s our point this week. Golf belongs to everyone, anyone with the time and inclination to get out and hack away.
“It’s so difficult, and so tough to master,” Taddei said. “You never master it, and I think that’s the draw. It’s so difficult that when you do well, you feel that you’ve accomplished something. I’ve played everything in my life, baseball, softball, basketball, and there’s no sport quite like it. … Golf is good for the soul. Real good for the soul.”
More for your Sunday Read:
Winslow Townson / Getty Images
Former Yale coach Tony Reno. (Photo By Winslow Townson/Getty Images)
On Character, Tony Reno
The Yale Football Association shared this week that former football coach Tony Reno has been diagnosed with Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD), an extremely rare and fatal brain disease. A family trust has been established to help provide financial support for his round-the-clock care and ongoing needs. Those interested in helping can go Spotfund.com to find the Reno Family Support page.
For your summer reading list: “On Character: Choices That Define A Life,” by retired Gen. Stanley McChrystal, published in 2025, features segments on Reno. They met when the general taught at Yale in 2012, the year Reno arrived, and McChrystal spoke with the team.
On occasion, McChrystal would invite rising seniors on a retreat to the Gettysburg Battlefield. In the chapter “Patience in Pursuit of Greatness,” the general details the things he learned and admired watching Reno coach.
“His choice to focus on leadership is a poignant one,” McChrystal writes, “The common denominator in most great leadership isn’t superior recruiting, clever game plans or motivational slogans. It’s about setting high standards and embodying them.”
It’s worth a read, especially now, as it would be impossible to imagine a greater example of courage and character for young people than Reno displayed last season, coaching Yale to the FCS playoffs. To read the general’s thoughts on Reno, you can find “On Character” on Amazon and all the places books are sold.
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Sunday short takes
*Two faculty members of UConn’s Korey Stringer Institute, CEO Douglas Casa and Robert Huggins, chief research officer and president of athlete performance, joined a group of experts who sent an open letter to FIFA, urging officials to take steps to keep athletes safe from extreme heat during the World Cup.
“We respectfully urge FIFA to adopt heat-management protocols that align with contemporary exercise physiology, occupational health principles and duty of care standards expected in elite sport,” the letter reads.
FIFA calls for three-minute breaks at the 30- and 75-minute marks when wetbulb globe temperatures, which measures combined effect of heat, humidity, wind and sunlight, reach 89.6 degrees Fahrenheit. The letter signed by KSI officials asked FIFA to lower the WBGT standard to 78.8 degrees and call for six-minute breaks, while also increasing hydration and cooling opportunities. Games played in Miami, Houston and Atlanta are of particular concern.
*UConn baseball lost Big East Pitcher of the Year Cayden Suchy, who hit the portal and committed to Florida State.
*Josh Mooney, junior from Stonington, repeated as an All-American for UConn track and field, finishing eighth in the NCAA decathlon championships, four places higher than 2025.
*The Connecticut Sun’s celebration of Juneteenth and Black Music Month, the Sun & Soul Fest, is happening Sunday, featuring live music and entertainment, activities and games, raffles and giveaways on the Sun Patio outside the Mohegan Sun Arena. Admission is free and open to all ages, with donations to the Connecticut Sun Foundation encouraged. Go to the Sun’s website for more info.
*The Franciscan Sports Banquet brought a crowd of 650 to the Aqua Turf in Southington on June 2, where former Huskies great Emeka Okafor, called “the perfect college basketball player” by his coach, Jim Calhoun, was among the honorees. Ever the conscientious student, ‘Mek made a full study of St. Francis, for whom the award he received was named.
*It’s always a sign of respect when programs poach your assistant coaches. UConn men’s hockey coach Mike Cavanaugh lost one of his top lieutenants, Nick Peruzzi, to Wisconsin this week.
*So we can no longer expect Bill Murray at UConn men’s basketball games, but if Jon Gruden becomes a fixture at Rentschler Field, that would work out just fine.
Jerry Seinfeld watches during the second half of Game 4 of the NBA Finals basketball series between the San Antonio Spurs and the San Antonio Spurs, Wednesday, June 10, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)
Last word
Alex Jakubowski, 23, of West Hartford may have broken the internet this week. A die-hard fan of UConn, New York sports — and Seinfeld reruns — he posted a photo of Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David at Madison Square Garden following the Knicks miracle comeback in Game 4 of the NBA Finals and invoked the memorable rental-car counter scene from Seinfeld’s sitcom. “The Spurs know how to TAKE the lead, they just don’t know how to HOLD the lead. And that’s really the most important part of the lead. The holding.” … The joke landed, and Jakubowski has been in the driver’s seat of Jon Voight’s Chrysler ever since. The post on X (formerly Twitter) had been viewed by nearly nine million by Saturday morning, including David, who went on “The Rich Eisen Show” and gave the post a shoutout. “Never in a million years did I expect this to happen,” Jakubowski said in a follow-up post. Nine million viewers, a shoutout from Larry David and now the Sunday Read? The kid is clearly master of his domain.