Highfields has no 18-hole walking rate. Every 18 is $80 Monday through Thursday and $95 Friday through Sunday, cart included, and on weekend mornings the cart is mandatory until 1pm. That is the first thing to know about the best-reviewed public course in the Worcester ring. The second is that 284 GolfPass reviewers rate it 4.2 and 98.6 percent of them recommend it, the deepest review base of any course between Route 495 and Worcester. It is a 2002 Mark Mungeam design on a former dairy farm in Grafton, 7,021 yards from the tips to a slope of 137. Here's the full 2026 rate card, why the range is closed, and the booking mess on its own website.
What Highfields is
Highfields Golf and Country Club is at 42 Magill Drive in Grafton, about 40 miles southwest of Boston and 10 miles from Worcester. The land was Silver Spruce Acres, the Magill family dairy farm. In 1996 the New York Times covered John Magill's plan to turn 350 of the family's 500 acres into a $20 million golf course wrapped in 160 homes. The course opened in 2002, the 30,000-square-foot clubhouse followed in 2005, and the John Henry Tavern opened in 2008. The Magills still own it and it is still fully public. PGA.com lists it as private. PGA.com is wrong.
Mark Mungeam designed it from the Cornish and Silva office, the same lineage as Cyprian Keyes in Boylston and The Meadow at Peabody. GolfPass lists the black tees at 7,021 yards, 74.0 rating, slope 137. Golf Digest and GolfLink both list slope 140. The golds are 6,474 yards at 71.7 and 134, the whites 6,024 at 69.7 and 127, and the greens 5,266 at 67.3 and 115. Par 72 with four par 5s at the 1st, 9th, 15th and 18th. Bent grass greens.
How it plays
Up and down. Golf Digest panelists describe elevation changes through the whole property, blind tee shots and blind second shots on several holes, and elevated greens you have to play short of. The 2nd is a par 3 straight down a steep hill to a green that runs away from you. The 13th is a downhill dogleg right where the ball runs a long way and you run out of room if you do not cut enough of the corner. The stroke-index-1 hole is the 3rd. The 15th, a par 5, is the second hardest.
The greens split the reviewers. Golf Digest calls them small and flat with short-grass runoffs. GolfPass regulars call them fast with tough undulations and say the green is an entirely different course from the tee shot. Both can be true on a Mungeam layout. 18Birdies rates green speed Fast and difficulty Hard across 582 reviews, with rounds logged as recently as September 7, 2026. The consensus phrase from the course's own testimonials and its reviews is “hard but fair.”
The knock is the housing. The course winds around the development that paid for it, and Golf Digest panelists flag long transitions between some holes. A fence went up on the 12th in 2024 and regulars complained it took away the option of carrying the hazard. Fall views over the Blackstone Valley get called spectacular, and the tavern patio sits above the 18th green.
2026 rates
The rates page is labeled 2026. Every 18-hole price includes a cart because there is no walking price for 18.
| Rate | When | Price |
|---|---|---|
| 18 holes with cart | Mon to Thu | $80 |
| 18 holes with cart | Fri, Sat, Sun, holidays | $95 |
| Senior 60+ or veteran, 18 with cart | Mon to Thu, no holidays | $65 |
| 9 holes walking / riding | Any day | $35 / $45 |
| Junior under 18, walking | Mon to Thu, Fri after 2pm | $30 |
| Junior 18 to 24 | Mon to Thu, Fri after 2pm | $45 |
| Club rental, TaylorMade set | $50 |
There is no twilight rate. On weekends you can walk after 1pm, but you still pay $95. Before 1pm on a weekend you must take a cart and play 18 unless the course is cart path only. Riding alone costs a premium cart fee that the site does not price. The one real bargain is $35 to walk nine, any day, which is the only walking golf on the property.
Season passes run $4,350 for seven days, $5,225 with cart, $3,275 for Monday through Thursday, and $3,700 for the weekday pass with cart. A spouse adds $1,800. Young Executive for ages 25 to 28 is $1,650. Passes cover green fees, a locker, bag storage and a 14-day booking window instead of the public 7. The Inner Club is a $200 competitive group that holds a block of Saturday and Sunday tee times, which matters when you are trying to book a weekend morning.
The range is closed
The tee-times page says it plainly: Practice Range Closed Indefinitely. A November 2024 reviewer already noticed. GolfPass still lists a driving range in its amenities. If you need to warm up, the practice areas around the clubhouse are what you get. For a course charging $95 on a Saturday, that is a real gap, and it is the kind of thing the directory sites will not tell you.
What the reviews say
The GolfPass category scores are value 4.4, friendliness 4.2, layout 4.2, pace 4.1, amenities 4.1, and conditions 3.9. Value is the top score and conditions is the bottom, which is unusual for a course at this price. The conditions complaints cluster in the shoulder season: slow-healing fall aeration, leaf cover, cart-path-only days that turn a four-hour round into five. A Golf Digest panelist in 2022 noted fairway turf disease. Summer 2025 reviewers said the course held up through the drought and drained well after rain.
Pace complaints center on the 12th through 15th, where a longtime player says every round bogs down. A Labor Day round ran close to five hours. One July 2025 reviewer, a GolfPass top-1000 contributor, said the water jugs were empty on a 90-degree day and that it happens most rounds. The pro shop gets praised for inventory, especially women's gear. Highfields made the GolfPass top 20 in Massachusetts in 2020, 2021 and 2023 and has not made it since.
How booking works
The public books 7 days out, four players max, credit card to hold, and you pay at the course. Cancel with 24 hours notice by phone at (508) 839-1945, option 1, or the card gets billed for every player on the reservation. Pass holders book 14 days out. The course also runs a Noteefy alert, so you can register for a text when a time opens in your window.
Here is the problem. The Make a Tee Time button in the site navigation goes to Chronogolf. The Tee Times button at the bottom of the tee-times page and the link in the FAQ both go to foreUP. Two booking engines, one course, no note about which one is current. The Chronogolf listing shows the course at zero yards and links to a .org domain the club does not use. The golf hours page says tee times are closed for the season. It is September. Highfields also lists on GolfNow, and several recent GolfPass reviews are tagged verified purchaser, so that channel is live.
Where it fits
The Worcester ring has four courses in the $80 to $115 band and Highfields sits at the bottom of it with Kettle Brook. Kettle Brook in Paxton is the same $80 Monday through Thursday and $95 on weekends, walking or riding, and it adds a $70 twilight that Highfields lacks. Wachusett is $85 and $105. Blackstone Nationalin Sutton is $57 to walk on a weekday but $115 with mandatory cart on a weekend. Green Hill, Worcester's muni, is $43 weekday and has a 4.87 on GolfPass. Highfields has the best review depth and the highest slope of the group. It does not have a range or a twilight rate. The full map is in the Worcester guide.
Highfields has two booking links that go to two different systems, a weekend rule that bans walking before 1pm at any price, and a range you will not find out is closed until you pull in. Text Carl the day you want and your group size. He checks foreUP, Chronogolf and GolfNow for the live sheet, calls the shop if they disagree, and sends back a time with the real all-in price and a warning to warm up somewhere else.
