Played Poppy Hills yesterday morning with a 9:20 AM tee time. Weather was absolutely perfect with sunny skies, low 60 temps and little to no wind. Course is in its usual great shape from tee to green. Range was off mats and a small bucket of balls now costs $10. That’s really the only downside to this course. Greens rolled very smooth at a nice medium-fast pace. Green complexes are very large but they have several undulations so getting on the right tier is critical. The nice thing about the greens at Poppy is that the undulations are spread out over the big greens so unlike Blackhorse where you have multiple breaks in one putt, you usually just have one or maybe two breaks to negotiate depending on how far away you are.

The other thing is the greens have a brownish tint to them. Doesn’t effect the ball at all, just more of an aesthetics thing. Fairways on the other hand were excellent. Very lush and green throughout. They offered a good combination of roll out and lush hitting surface.

Tee boxes were all level with great coverage and divot free. I had a streak of 4 holes where I was in a greenside bunker. All had high quality fluffy sand. Rough was manageable in some areas and deep and penal in others. There are a lot of holes that border gulch’s and the rough is deep in those areas to help stop wayward balls.

Even though the course is built on a hill, it is pretty easy to walk. Most of the holes traverse the hillside and the transfers are pretty short (except from 9 to 10 and maybe 8 to 9). There were a couple of beginners in our group so we were the slow group often a full hole behind the group in front of us. Yet only once did the group behind us have to wait on us as they were often a half hole + behind. So I guess it all worked out.

Poppy Hills is a another gem of a golf course in the 93953 area code. It’s overlooked by some and a main staple for others. Either way, it deserves the accolades.

My turn to treat and mixed it up this go around and played Quail Lodge on Thursday 2/16. It’s always so fun to play here with great course conditions and friendly staff. This go around was no exception. Whereas the fairways weren’t in their beyond a 10, usual condition, they were still very very nice. My buddy kept commenting on how nice the fairways were. Fairways definitely had nice lush coverage and a perfect emerald green color throughout. A few of the fairways were a bit soft and didn’t offer much roll out but overall nothing to huff about.

Greens rolled super smooth (I had 6 one putts) at a nice fast pace but not wicked fast. The nice part was they rolled at the same speed in all directions. Very predictable. Like many courses right now, the greens were a tad on the firm side but still acceptable. The collar around the greens on the other hand were super soft. Land there and it was pretty much a guaranteed plug or one foot roll out.

Tee boxes were all level with good coverage throughout. I was in A LOT of sand traps, so I got a thorough testing of the bunkers. Most traps had high quality soft fluffy sand. Only one or two were a little thin.

There was a frost delay so POP was a little backed up and we waited on all shots but still finished in around 4-4:15 hrs. Customer service is excellent. One of bag drop kids is super friendly and helpful (the other is a bit lost) and the starter and pro shop attendees are also very friendly. My main complaint is they didn’t have a shirt in my size (nor did they seem to care, but oh well).

I also stayed at the hotel. Rooms are fabulous and the setting is a very quaint relaxed vibe. There’s a fun 9 hole putting green around the resort. Food at the “new” Covey restaurant was average at best. Dessert on the other hand was Excellent.

The hotel and course are both highly recommended

I've played Coyote Creek a couple of times in the last 10 days. Overall, the course is in great shape. Greens roll very smooth at the perfect medium fast pace. Greens are a little on the firm side but not too bad. Fairways were in very nice shape sans the few areas being repaired from hog damage a few months ago. Fairways present the perfect combination of a great hitting surface with good roll out.

Rough is actually manageable at only 2" tall and not overly thick. Sand traps.... So, the traps themselves are fine. Good high quality sand. Problem is no one rakes the traps. We play early morning before maintenance has a chance to clean them up from the previous day and the bunkers have a ton of unraked food prints.

Tee boxes are all level with good coverage. Layout is fun and challenging with some elevation changes on the first few holes, followed by some water hazards on the last two. POP is generally going to be slow if you play in prime time. We usually get out as one of the first groups and get around in 3-3.5 hours but last week with the frost delay had to call in quit after 15 holes once we hit the masses on the first tee (we started on #4).

Coyote Creek is a perfect location for when I have to head up to the bay area and will probably be playing her more in the summer once we can tee off prior to 7am. Course conditions are right on point with the price line.

I took advantage of the perfect Monterey weather yesterday with a Noon tee time at Laguna Seca. As I've mentioned before, I absolutely love this layout. Unfortunately, it's usually muni conditions at best. Current conditions are no exception. Somehow with all the rain in December and January followed by the abundance of sun the last couple of weeks, Laguna still has thin spotty fairways. Unlike Del Monte, the fairways at Laguna were all dry, so no issue there. Coverage was ok, but there were a number of thin and dead areas throughout the course. I did notice that they had quite a few areas roped off where new seed had been planted and in a few cases even some new sod.

Greens are notoriously bumpy at Laguna Seca. Yesterday was a mixed bag. about 2/3 were actually quite smooth and rolled fine at a medium pace. then there were the other handful of greens which had some disease areas, bumpy and on the case of 15, the pronounced drainage pipe line showing through. Which somehow they decided to place the cup right next to the drainage pipe?

I was in two bunkers. One had excellent sand, and the other was still a bit wet from the rains a couple weeks ago.

Tee boxes are so so. Some perfectly acceptable, and others are uneven and chewed up (especially 8 & 14).

Customer service remains below standard as well. I didn't have an issue, but the two guys I was paired up with on the front nine (who were playing the front twice due to an issue with the pro shop attendant) relayed a story about poor customer service. It's the same old guy (I've mentioned him before) that just doesn't want to be flexible at all.

Anyway. It was a glorious day to wear shorts and the POP was very pleasant (I played 30 holes in 4.5 hours). Also, the mid week prices have come down to a reasonable fare. Given the new prices and the fun layout of the track. I'd recommend Laguna Seca as a good warm up course (it's under 5 minutes from the airport) when visiting the Monterey Peninsula.

Sun is out so time to get the sticks out more than twice a month! SDF and I met up with Bob yesterday at Del Monte on a glorious peninsula day. I walked even though cart is included for us as it is CPO right now. Based on the wet fairways, I would suspect it will remain that way for a while.

Greens were in fantastic shape rolling super smooth at medium fast pace overall. Super fast downhill and medium slow up hill. Only one green had a small area of disease in a corner. All others were in excellent condition. As mentioned before greens are smaller with traditional back to front slope. Don’t confuse that with easy. Greens present enough slope to make most putts challenging but doable.

Sand traps were also in excellent shape with nice fluffy sand. A couple were a tad thin (nit picking here) but overall all the traps were above average (aka on par with high end courses). Tee boxes were all fine. Level with ample coverage.

Rough - Yes, Del Monte actually has some legitimate rough now. Not overly thick or penal but certainly enough to keep a stray ball from rolling off into never never land as before.

Fairways were the one area the course is a reminder that we are in the middle of a very wet winter. Fairways were very very wet. Just about every ball landing in the fairway ended up plugged, heavily covered in mud and if you got more than 5 yards of roll out you were very lucky. In fact if you got any forward roll on a drive you were fortunate. There were very few standing water areas but overall most fairways were soggy or at least damp. Still playable, but definitely a lift clean and place situation.

We tee’d off mid day and if it wasn’t for the group of caddies in front us slowing things down we would have sailed through. As it was we finished just under 4 hours.

As mentioned before, for our rate of $35-$39 with cart it’s a bargain. For $135 on weekends or whatever they charge I would probably opt elsewhere.

I used to avoid this track on weekends and holidays, now due to the construction, it's the only time I play here. Played Thursday afternoon when a buddy informed me that construction was being stopped for the extended weekend. My guess as a way to draw in more AT&T fans. What was once a go to (and home course0 in the peninsula, is now becoming an average muni (at best). Currently the greens are super firm and fast (even more so than normal). I played Coyote Creek the day before and their greens were firm and fast but fair. BlackHorse is just comical right now.

Fairways were ok. They always present tight lies, so as long as you're good with that you wont be disappointed. Fairways had adequate coverage throughout the course. rest of the course (tee boxes, bunkers, rough) were all ok. nothing exciting, but nothing to complain about.

Of course the real disappointment is all the construction of the new homes going in around the course. Houses, are just being built around the perimeter of the course, they are all smack in the middle. As in cart paths are being re-routed to go around houses. Once the houses are built just about all of the ocean views will be gone. It will be interesting to see what type of golfer they attract once that happens. Especially if conditions continue to slip.

For now. If you are like me and play on holidays or weekends when the construction is halted, it's ok. But I wouldn't play with all the earth movers and construction going on during the week.

Traveled up to Apple Mountain on Friday 1/27/23 for a preseason match against DeepSea14 in the SNOW (see pictures). Apparently Peter was reminiscing about the Patriots win over the Raiders in the snow (the famous tuck rule game) and wanted similar conditions to help him out. Actually, we purposely chose the course based on the fact that there would be snow on some of the holes. After playing Spanish Bay on Thursday in perfect conditions (course and weather), this was to be more about the experience. Straight up what a BLAST. With snow at the entrance and half the driving range covered in snow, it was just as we hoped. Weather was actually decent with only a jacket required while waiting in the shade. We played the front nine twice as the back nine was still closed due to heavy snow.

We were treated to picturesque snow on the left side of the landing area on the first hole. The rest of the course had snow/ice tucked in here and there throughout making it a memorable day. The ninth hole had another large snow patch in the fairway as well. Naturally it was cart path only but surprisingly the fairways were in mostly playable conditions. Due to the course being on a mountain, it has great runoff and drainage, so the areas in the sun were pretty decent.

Greens were decent enough. Not buttery smooth and fast like the previous day at the Bay but good enough to make a few putts including a birdie to make me now an official Snow Bird (lol). Green complexes are mostly double tiered that if you were on the right level made the green docile but on the wrong tier made for a challenging two putt.

Layout is fun target golf with all holes having elevation changes. Again with it being the first day the course was open after the recent snow storm it was exactly what we expected and what we were looking for. Whereas, the course conditions were average, they were actually better than expected. I posted a few pictures.

It was an epic day that was so worth it!

Started the year out with a round at Spanish Bay. With all of the rain in the last week it was tough just to find a break in the weather to play. JusGas88 joined Bob and I along with another friend from the valley to kick off the year. We managed to get most of the round in without rain and what rain we did have for a few holes was very manageable. Oddly enough there was NO wind so it was bearable for sure. In fact, Bob was in shorts!

After perfect conditions last week, I was curious to see how the course held up after 5 days of rain. I was impressed for sure. Greens were absolutely fine. Yes they rolled at a medium pace but they rolled smooth, not that hairy (I have no idea when they able to mow them) and were puddle free. They even had some of the pins in the low spots. That’s how well the greens drained.

Fairways were interesting. Three of us walked and on the surface, the fairways were fine. A few soggy areas here and there but not too bad. However, but drives would plug or get all of about 5’ of roll out. Fairways were soft for sure! As far as presenting a nice hitting surface for approach shots, the fairways were fine. In fact they were nice and lush with minimal post impact “splash” you get when playing other courses in the rain.

The rough on the other hand was brutal. Deep, wet and your ball would plug or sit down making hard to find. I lost 2 balls throughout the day in the rough where we knew pretty much exactly where the ball landed, yet couldn’t find it. The good news was I easily found 10 golf balls from other players who were in the same area.

All of the sand traps had drained well. I was in 2 and saved par from one, so no complaints. Sand was a little wet but still miles ahead of other courses in “prime condition”.

Tee boxes were fine as well. Level with ample coverage throughout. Maintenance crews have done a lot digging around the edges creating ditches to control the flow of water. There were a bunch of new “water hazards” off to the sides of the courses and behind the greens where mini ponds had formed from the controlled routing of the water. Very impressive on the grounds crew and Thank You.

POP was just over 4 hours. It was slow going initially due to so many people in carts with CPO which takes so much longer (and you walk just about the same amount). Towards the end, a few of the twosomes threw in the towel and that sped things up.

Overall, given the amount of rain we’ve had in the last week, the course was in great shape.

Last round of the year and the “grand finale” of a fun week of golf was at Spyglass Hill. I knew going into the round that conditions would be excellent to perfect after experiencing great conditions down the road on Tuesday. The heavy rains of last week along with the beautiful sunshine this weekt has the Pebble Courses all in tip top shape. Spyglass was no exception today. Morning temps were mild (52 degrees) at our 8:40 AM tee time. In fact weather was perfect all day long with hardly a breath of wind during the entire round. The sun came out after a few holes for a typical peninsula 61 degree day. The whales are migrating right now and Tuesday we saw a couple but struck out today.

As for the course conditions, superb. Tee boxes were perfectly flat and groomed like an NFL stadium. Easily a 10 for the tee boxes. Fairways were lush and a nice emerald green color throughout. Not a brown or thin spot to be found. The only complaint with the fairways was there were a few damp spot in the morning but nothing huge. Also, as of this week they haven’t roped off the preferred landing areas as GUR in order to keep them clean for the AT&T in about 4 weeks. I imagine that will happen soon.

Rough was also wet and sticky. It was easy to get a good lie in the rough, but it was like swinging through Velcro. Very penal but fair.

Greens rolled super smooth at a nice fast pace. No un-repaired pitch marks on the greens and if I had a complaint, I’d say they were a tad firm. Well struck shot easily held or spun back but a number of shots would roll out. My guess is they are starting to firm them up for the upcoming tournament.

Sand traps were excellent as well. Conditions are exactly what you would expect for this bucket list high end course. All services are still in effect (full carry caddie, club clean, shoe clean etc) and beverage cart was around a few times.

SDF and I used Mitch one of my go to caddies and he is the best. Spot on with his reads, ball spots and has an excellent personality. We had a new caddie for our second as my other go to loopers were busy. Mark was old school – keep up, hand up and shut up. It was the first time playing The Glass and having a caddie for my cousins so they were just happy having the “pro” experience of someone carrying their clubs.

A perfect day with perfect company on a perfect course was a great way to end the year. Even if the score on the back nine was less than perfect!

I finally made it out to Cordevalle after a number of attempts to coordinate it. Played yesterday morning as the second group out. There was a frost delay so we had breakfast in the restaurant and it was excellent. For a resort and private club, it was very quiet throughout with only a few groups going out after us. All staff were very friendly and it’s credit card only in the restaurant and pro shop. The pro shop is on the smaller side with an average amount of clothing options.

We opted for breakfast over range and warm up, so I’m not sure what the practice facility and driving range set up is like. On to the course conditions. As expected for a higher end place like this, everything was very nice. Of course with a ton of rain last week and plenty of sun this week, everything was very green and lush throughout. However, I get the feeling that they keep it that way regardless.

Greens rolled very smooth with no pitch marks to be found. Green complexes were that perfect blend of enough undulations to make it challenging but not overly tricked out to the point it’s ridiculous. I also noticed that the greens all took on different shapes and sizes. Some were smaller traditional round shape (like Del Monte and Pacific Grove) while others would be long and skinny or short and very wide. It definitely helped having a forecaddie who knew the greens on approach shots . Our Forecaddie was Felix who has been there 20 years and he was excellent with his reads. Also, all flags are white regardless of pin location. The first half dozen greens were very slow, but that was probably due to the cold and frost. Once the sun was out they sped up to a medium fast pace.

Fairways were bliss. Lush and a deep emerald green color throughout. Rough was thick enough to keep you honest but not overly penal. Tee boxes were excellent. All were level with great coverage. Even the shorter par 3’s were divot free. Bunkers were top notch as well. All bunkers (between us we were in numerous traps) had high quality fluffy sand.

As for the layout. That’s the one area I was a bit disappointed. The course is set in the foothills so it has some minor elevation changes which is great. Most fairways have ample landing area and there are a couple of water hazards on the course. The disappointment was that every hole was pretty much dead straight. Not a dog leg in sight. There were a couple of creeks to navigate but they didn’t really come into play. Only the longest of hitters would be forced to lay up off the tee on one and the other even the shortest of hitters could comfortably carry off the tee. The main defense on the course are the numerous fairway bunkers. Again, it was excellent conditions and a very enjoyable track, but lacked the “wow” factor for me. Maybe during a different time of year it comes alive. I traded a round at Spanish Bay to play and for a one time deal, I have no regrets. Would I do it again? That’s a tough question.

I needed a quick round and Crazy Horse always fits the bill when timed right (early morning or after Noon). I easily got around in 2 hours on this fun track with some unique holes. Layout isn't anything wild yet there are only a couple of been there done that holes. it has some mild Elevation changes as well as a water hazard that comes into play on two holes.

Conditions are above average with the fairways being nice and green throughout. Greens rolled smooth at a medium fast pace. Most greens are single tiered with a modest slope, making them predictable but not boring. Sand traps (I was in 5) all had a nice layer of fluffy white sand. Tee boxes were level with good coverage.

being that I had to pick some stuff up at Lowe's (3 minutes down the road) this was a perfect track (and location) to get in a fun fast round. Also of note, there is a creek running through a few of the holes and it actually has water in it right now after all the rain we had last week.

I had to skip the restaurant this time but it's well worth staying for if you have the time.

Joined the other GK’ers at Quail yesterday for a super fun round in the peninsula. Quail Lodge is part hotel resort and part country club. They do a great job at appeasing both sets of clients by keeping the pro shop and restaurant (now café) away from the main hotel. Edgars restaurant has now (for about a year or so) moved up to the hotel. Staff all around at Quail is excellent with bag check service at the drop off and a well stocked pro shop that has not only your typical golf apparel, but also some nice customized Quail lodge gifts like wine glasses and such.

As for the course it was excellent as usual. Greens were near a 10. Easily a 9.5. They rolled super smooth at a medium -fast pace. Had I not just played Tehama the other day which has the fastest greens anywhere, I probably would have said the greens at Quail rolled at a fast pace. Most greens at Quail are manageable with just a single tier that slopes front to back. There are a few thrown in with multiple breaks to keep things challenging. The greens easily held well struck approach shots, yet didn’t have any ugly pitch marks all over the place. Even the greens on the second half of the round which was in the late afternoon, still rolled very smooth.

Fairways had great coverage throughout and were lush. Some of the fairways had a light dusting of sand on them that was more noticeable when your tee shot landed than when standing over your ball preparing to hit your approach shot. Whereas the fairways this time around weren’t over the top excellent (I’ve seen them where a 10 isn’t a high enough rating), they were still above average and a 9.

I wasn’t in any bunkers but they looked like they had ample sand from the other players. Tee boxes were level will good coverage. POP was slow because of a Twosome (in our group) that kept holding us up! Even though we were the slow group out there, we only let a single then a twosome through. The rest of the course was quiet and had that country club feeling.

It's been a couple of years since I’ve stayed at the hotel, but it is worth doing a stay and play as the hotel is great and the golf course is excellent. Quail is also dog friendly and usually in the sun when other courses are fogged in.

Highly recommend it.