The new Golf Center at Lyman Orchards is progressing towards a spring 2012 opening.

The project will add a comprehensive learning center with nine-hole executive course, the only new golf-course construction slated for 2011 in Connecticut to the existing two courses at Lyman’s, which have been ranked among CT’s Top Ten Public Golf Courses, The Best of the Northeast, and Zagat.com as “among of the best courses to play in the United States.”

The new par-29 course is taking shape across from the Apple Barrel Country Store and pond, with a parking area and entrance center located on Route 157.

The site will measure 1,600 yards with bentgrass greens and built to USGA specifications. Holes will range between 115 and 315 yards in length.

Also planned is a 40-stall combination grass and artificial turf driving range with target greens and sand traps, short-game practice area and 2,000-square-foot clubhouse.

Lyman Orchards Golf Club opened in 1969 with Robert Trent Jones designing a championship 18-hole golf course with four sets of tees on each hole, coupled with 44 bunkers. In 1994, world-renowned player and golf course designer Gary Player opened the second course, “The Player Course,” through the apple orchards and elevation changes.

Lyman Orchards began in 1741 as a 36-acre farm and remains a family-owned and operated business on 1,100 acres in Middlefield, Conn. In addition to golf, the business includes a farm store, pick-your-own crops, and a corporate meeting and special events venue in the Lyman Homestead, now listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Popular events are held throughout the year at the Apple Barrel store. Stephen Ciskowski is CEO and John Lyman III is chief operating officer.