The third and final round of the Vegas trip was at Anthem Country Club on Wednesday. This is allegedly one of the higher end CC’s in the Vegas area. I will be as open minded as possible during this review and my comparison will be against other high end public courses in the area and not against the Uber elite Southern Highlands CC which I played the day before playing Anthem.

I’ll start with the layout. Anthem has some of the widest fairways I have ever seen. It really begs a grip it and rip it attitude. Plenty of room for error in the landing zone with only the occasional bunker to disturb a tee shot that lands anywhere in the same zip code. Stray way way off path and your ball is in a creek or bare desert terrain separating the course from the surrounding houses. Plenty of modest elevation changes throughout the course but most holes are pretty straightforward. The course has a number of water hazards, but most are behind the green. Overall it was a decent layout similar to that of Serket or the two courses at The Revere Golf Club.

Greens at Anthem were very large. They had moderate undulations and rolled at a nice medium-fast pace. Fairways had some of the weirdest grass I’ve ever seen on a golf course. On the surface it looked fine but it had the tendency to grab your club in the worst way. On the other hand the rough was great. Only about 2” deep but lush and predictable.

Overall, Anthem is a nice course. Nothing super fancy but definitely enjoyable with decent playing conditions. I would put it on the same level (or a touch below) that of Serket.

Regarding recommending the course, I’d say there are better options (especially if you have to pay the ridiculously high “holiday week reciprocal fee” but if you get invited by a member who wants to treat you, don’t turn it down.

I’ll start things off regarding the name change. Rio Secco is now officially called Serket. I talked to the head pro regarding the name change and he clarified the course is still under the same ownership along with Cascata. Apparently they paid a licensing fee for the old name so instead of paying the increased fee and passing that along to players, they opted to change the name. I’m good with that.

For all the times I’ve played Cascata, I’ve never played here before. We tee’d off on Monday with a mid/late morning tee time. Weather was absolutely perfect. Course layout was fun with a number of elevation changes. I would have liked to have seen some more water features but there were some other forced carries to make up for it. Conditions were very nice all around. Fairways were great. There had been a lot of rain the previous few days so it was CPO which was a drag as it slowed the round down to over 5 hours. Other than a couple of plugged tee shots, the fairways weren’t bad at all. Definitely plush and easy to hit off of.

Greens were also on par with the level of this course. They rolled smooth at a medium pace and had what I would call a normal amount of undulations. Enough to challenge you, but nothing overwhelming. Tee boxes were level. Sand traps were a bit thin from time to time but overall ok. Customer service was excellent from the pro shop attendee’s to the waitress in the restaurant. Bag drop and club cleaning afterwards to ensure you get the complete service.

If you do the Double Down or whatever they call it with the Cascata package this is a great second course at a very reasonable price. In fact, I actually liked Serket better than Anthem Country Club which we played a couple days later and paid a WHOLE LOT more to play.

Bob and I joined SDF at Tehama Friday morning to kick start an upcoming week of great golf. Well at least great golf courses. The way I’m playing is an entirely different story. Anyway, we caught the first day of some glorious weather. This course is always in top notch condition and today was no exception. Even after a week of rain the course was only CPO on about 3 holes. Very few wet spots on the course which is mainly due to the severe slope and elevation changes on every hole. It also makes a for a fun and challenging track. Definitely a far cry from a flat parkland been there done that layout. Also, the stunning views of the ocean (from afar and high up) and the mountainous terrain on the back give this place a surreal and quaint vibe. The only house you will encounter is Clint’s house which has a driveway that goes through the middle of the course!

Greens at Tehama are the fastest in the business. Lightening fast in all directions. Including uphill against the grain. Just wicked. Rough was tough. Longer than usual due the recent rain which has kept them from mowing in a while. Everything was lush and green as expected. Customer service was great as always. One minor drawback is the lack of GPS in the carts.

Well, it’s a bike ride tomorrow then off to Vegas to see if I can double down on some pars and maybe find an Ace I can keep!

I played. Del Monte on Tuesday with a late morning tee time. Conditions are very nice all around. The small greens roll true at a nice fast pace. Fairways were lush throughout and the rough was very manageable. The sand traps were a perfect 10. Super fluffy sand throughout. This is a very easy course to walk so it was great to get out and stretch the legs after my MTB ride the previous day. The downside of the tight parkland setting is the greens are very close to the next tee box. Great for transfers when walking, not so great when things backed up and you had two groups waiting on the tee box, chatting away while you’re lining up a birdie putt. POP was ok for 10 holes then got horribly slow. The layout is so so but the conditions are up there with the big three.

Out for my monthly round at Spanish Bay with Bob. We tee’d off at our normal 9ish time in another beautiful day. No fog all day and about a 1 club wind on the last 6-8 holes. Course remains in great shape tee to green with the greens being maybe a touch better than last month.

We were paired with a 10 year old (soon to be 11) phenom!! Her name is Teagan Tudla and she is the real deal. She’s won several titles in the under 10 category and next week will be her first tournament in the big girl class (11-13). Teagan and her parents were absolutely wonderful people to be around. My game stunk to high Heaven but it was so awesome watching Teagan tear up the course. She came within a few inches of a hole in one on #8. I can’t wait to tee it up with Teagan again. But next time she’s giving me 5 strokes a side! And if we ever do another GK Cup team event, well sorry Peter, but I know who my new partner will be!!

As far as the course goes, each month there’s more and more talk about what the new design will be like. Unfortunately, I don’t have any information. At least not from a reliable source. If Jeff (head pro) does know, he’s not telling us.

What a glorious day yesterday!! Bob and I tee’d off just after Noon on what was one of the most perfect golf weather days on the peninsula all year! Sunny and about 72 degrees with hardly a breath of wind. The fog did roll in with about 2 1/2 holes left to play but given a couple of weeks ago it was sweater and vest weather and a couple weeks before that up the road at Poppy Hills we couldn’t see the greens through the thick fog from 100 yards out, this was a big welcome.

Condition wise, I’m happy to report that the course is in fantastic shape. Back in May and June the course was starting to slip a little bit. I was concerned that since they are shutting it down for a makeover in March 2026, that they were going to start letting conditions slide downhill. That is not the case, I can assure you. Greens were excellent, rolling true at a nice medium-fast pace. They did get a little bumpy towards the end but that’s to be expected at 5pm on poa annua grass.
Fairways were near perfect. very lush throughout the entire course. Tee boxes were level with ample coverage. No issues with the sand traps or the rough. Beverage cart was around several times and for those who do take a cart they have GPS in them. POP was about 4 3/4 hours which is to be expected for a weekend tee time here. All in all, Spanish Bay is in fantastic shape with ocean views galore. It’s no surprise that it’s one of my favorite go to courses on the Monterey Peninsula.

DeepSea14 and I met up at the newly redesigned Poppy Ridge. Gone are the three separate 9 hole layouts used in rotation to create 18 holes for the day, and in place is one standard 18 hole layout with a separate Par 3 course. This is obviously my first time playing the new layout, and I will admit that I only played the old course twice, so I didn’t have a huge sample to compare it with.

Before I go into the layout, I will give you the down and dirty only the conditions. Overall, very nice. Nothing below an 8. Greens rolled smooth and fast. Fairways had complete coverage throughout the entire course. Fairways presented tight lies but the trade off is good roll out.

Sand traps were an 8-9 in that they had deep fluffy sand. Only 1 was damp and a little compacted. tee boxes were level and divot free. There isn’t any rough to speak of here. Just lush fairway and dirt. Maybe Peter can recall something different.

Onto the layout. It’s a hilly course with WIDE open fairways. Probably the widest fairways I’ve seen in a long time. Much much issue off the tee. A bombers dream for sure. I struggled with the driver all day, yet I finished with the same ball I started with and didn’t have a single double bogey. Like I said WIDE open. Not a tree in sight. There is now only one water hazard on the entire course. That’s a bummer in my opinion. I’d say it was a water conservation thing but they have a ton of excess grass on tee boxes that are 100+ yards long and tightly mowed
“Fairway” grass from tee to green on a 200 yard par 3. If they needed to conserve water there are plenty of areas they could change that would save water yet not affect the playability of the course.

Greens were very large with modest undulations. Some of the greens rivaled those at Rancho Solano in nearby Fairfield, CA. BTW all flags are blue at Poppy Ridge we walked so we didn’t have access to the GPS in the carts and my golf app hadn’t updated the system to the new layout yet. We were often guessing at the pin location in relation to the overall layout of the green.

As mentioned before, the tee boxes while level and lush were. Huge. Sometimes a 100 yards long. We walked the course and for the most part it’s a fairly walkable course. There were only two real back breakers of a transfer. One was actually on a par 3 from the tee to the green which was across the gully. You had to retrace your path from the tee box back to the cart path and walk around the ditch then either walk all the way around the Side of the hill or hike through the barren land with rocks. A little bridge and path would have been nice.

Overall, I preferred the old layout to the new one. Not sure what the motivation was behind it as they didn’t make it any easier to walk nor did they insert any water conservation measures.

Am I disappointed? No, I’d play here again. The conditions coupled with the (NCGA) price is worth it alone. And it’s not that it’s a bad layout. I just preferred the old one.

Every time I play Cinnabar Hills, I walk away with a smile and say I need to play here more often. I played Wednesday morning with a 9AM tee time in bright sunny weather. Routing was the Mountain/Canyon combination and this is only my second time playing the Canyon 9. Unlike the other nines, the canyon is much more strategic off the tee. It’s a good mix up from the grip it and rip it wide fairways of the other two layouts. Condition wise the course was in fantastic shape. The last time I played here was in May so naturally it was in great shape. Weather has been hot this last week and you wouldn’t know it by the condition of the course.

Fairways were near perfect. Very lush with a nice emerald green glow throughout. Fairways presented a great hitting surface along with a decent amount of roll out. Easily rated a 9 but could be argued they were a 10. Tee boxes were also in that 8+ to 9 rating. Level and lush with ample coverage. I was only in one sand trap and it had a good amount of fluffy sand.

The rough was the “weak” spot. For the most part the rough was lush throughout but there were a handful or two of dead /thin areas. Still rated at a 7 so not horrible.

The greens were nice as well. The greens on the Mountain course were super smooth and rolled at a fast pace. Greens on the Canyon side were noticeably slower but still rolled true. The greens at Cinnabar are a perfect blend of challenging undulations but fair.

POP was 4.5 hrs and the carts have GPS to the pin.

Cinnabar is a public course that has a country club feel to it. Oh, and not a house within miles if you’re looking for a course outside a housing track.

Black Horse was once a favorite track that eventually disappeared from my playlist. Well after playing here on Tuesday, I’m happy to say it’s back. Yes the course is unrecognizable if you haven’t been here in a few years. Gone are the hundreds of Cypress trees that lined the fairways (and blocked views of the ocean). In their place are now dozens of homes. It is what it is. $3m dollar homes bring in more money than $59 Golf Now specials! But on the positive side is both courses remain fully intact with their original routing. Yes some wasteland areas have been added mainly from the tee box to the “new” beginning of the fairway a la Spanish Bay and Del Monte. However, unlike Spanish Bay it doesn’t take a monster drive to just reach the fairway. So kudos to Bayonet/Blackhorse for keeping both courses open and intact.

Conditions have also returned to excellent all around. Greens are firm and fast (but very predictable speed in all directions). We played in early afternoon so by the time we got to the back nine the wind was up a bit so that had more do with holding the green than anything. Down hill, down wind and it was impossible. Uphill, up wind and you could stick it 3’ from the pin.

Fairways were nice and lush side to side with hardly a thin spot to be found on the entire course. Sand traps were just short of a perfect 10. In fact, they probably were a 10 but because I was in 7 of them, I had to knock them down somehow!

POP was 4 hours 15 mins. Which wasn’t bad considering it took us 10-15 minutes to tee off because the idiots in front of us drove their cart into the soft sand / wasteland area and got stuck. Carts now have GPS in them which I don’t believe they did before.

As I mentioned before, they removed a ton of trees. This has opened up numerous views of the bay that weren’t there before. There is still construction going on but it’s traditional contractor stuff and not the heavy earth moving equipment that was here before.

I can finally say that a once favorite peninsula course is now worth playing again. Course conditions and layout now match the entry price.

I played here this morning with a sub 6AM Tee time to see if I could finally beat the 5 hr round that always comes with this place. Unfortunately, NO. In fact it got so bad that I quit after 12 holes and walked across the entire course back to the parking lot. Conditions of the course are pretty identical to my last review. the only real difference is that fairways were in a bit better shape side to side and the tee boxes were a bit uneven.

All in all this is a fun challenging track with solid conditions tee to green. All at an acceptable price point. However, the the dreaded 5 hr round during mid week and early early morning will most likely prevent me from coming back. I couldn’t image what this place is like on a weekend during prime time. Play here if you have a day to kill, otherwise avoid it.

Now that the Tour de France is over, I can get back to Golf! This course has been on and off my play list for some time now. Some people I talk to say it’s really worth playing and others say avoid at all cost. No one seemed to be in the middle… Except ME! Overall it was OK. Nothing that wowed me and nothing that horrified me.

I’ll start with the overall layout of the course. Deadpan flat. As in the wind chop waves in the bay had more elevation! That being said, it’s a super easy walk. It also provided numerous views of the SF bay and the City (San Francisco). That was cool and unexpected. For that I give it a thumbs up. Otherwise the layout was pretty boring. Just a parkland up and back type of routing. No real dog legs. 17 holes were pretty much dead straight. Fairways were generously wide on most holes. Wind can be the real factor here. Today it was average with about a 10-12 mph steady wind.

Conditions was sliding scale. Greens were fine. Rolled smooth at a medium pace with very few pitch marks. Greens were single tier with no real undulations. In fact, the hard part was reading them trying to decide if there was any break at all. Fine for a muni course and it helped the putting stats. From there the fairways were decent enough. Good coverage for the most part but definitely some thin and dead areas throughout the course. Again, well within the acceptable muni range. After that it declined significantly. Bunkers were pretty bad. Mainly hardpan dirt, or the occasional mud pit. Tee boxes were generally horrible. Very little grass, lots of uneven surfaces and hard to get a tee in the ground.

As far as the geese poop. There were only a couple of holes that had it off to the side. Not too bad. Nothing on the green. Pace of play was slow. Just under 5 hrs.

Would I recommend this course? Sure, if you are in the area (like sailed into the adjoining marina) or like I did today and just want to try a new course. Yes it’s worth it.

After having perfect weather the last couple of outing here at Poppy Hills, today was the complete opposite. Dense fog the entire round. To the point where you couldn’t see the green from beyond 77 yards. We had to yell to the groups behind to advise when the greens were clear. But, the upside was no wind and actually it wasn’t all that cold.

The rest of the course was in solid condition tee to green. Greens rolled smooth at a medium pace. I found myself with a lot of uphill putts which were pretty tame. Downhill on the other hand, super fast. Fairways were excellent. very lush throughout. Tee boxes were level and lush. Bunkers were very playable. Sand was a little thin but consistent nonetheless.

POP was 5 hours. It always seems slow here. Customer service has improved greatly this year. Well worth playing .