ALERT: (Projected Aeration Alert)
Will be aerating the greens 9/8 & 9/9.
* Please note that although we put a great amount of effort into forecasting course maintenance, we still recommend you contact the golf course to confirm this information.
Having had a few months to season itself after its recent renovation, Skylinks Golf Course at Long Beach has finally come of age enough to allow me to call my review fair. Once the nearly undisputed bottom rung on the ladder of Long Beach municipal courses, Skylinks is apparently trying to catapult itself to the top with a pricey renovation which I understand amounts to little more than a wardrobe update rather than a complete overhaul. To be fair, I had NOT played the old Skylinks, so I will refrain from drawing comparisons and rather focus on what I saw on Saturday morning, but for those who have played before and wonder if they need to play again because everything is different, expect a majority of the changes to be in the green complexes and contours (oh, and at the cash register too - the green fees have nearly doubled, depending on when you play.)
Skylinks is not a difficult layout - everything is set out in front of you and by and large, you have to work pretty hard to lose a golf ball. The course is not particularly long, and the firmness of the turf (even after our recent rains) makes it play even shorter still. For a relatively flat municipal course in the middle of developed suburbia, though, the course does present a remarkable number of challenges in the form of severe doglegs, ponds, and large trees that tempt the long hitter to bust a driver over them, risking not quite catching all of your shot and finding yourself imprisoned behind an arborial wall. The variety Skylinks presents, for a course in this class, is impressive, though the one thing that is lacking is that one beast of a hole that makes you feel like you better hit your two best shots to have any prayer of making a par.
Most notable to both Skylinks veterans and rookies are the green complexes. From what I hear, they used to be typical back-to-front sloped municipal greens with average grass and little character. Nobody will characterize these new greens as such, and I can promise you that. They are large, severely sloped in places, and they present a number of unique pin locations for each hole. The problem with this Mid-90's Nicklaus approach to putting surfaces is that some pin locations and slopes are quite gimmicky, and if the greens start running any faster, there might be some problems in spots. If you want to test your lag putting, I can think of worse places to do it, though, and despite the tricked-up greens, I think it provides a good contrast to what is typically available in municipal golf.
From conditioning standpoint, the biggest problem I see is that the putting greens are EXTREMELY firm - I hit a high ball with a good deal of spin and even getting a full sand-wedge to stop is sometimes a challenge. This is typical of new putting surfaces, but beware when you play that you will need to factor this into your equation when selecting clubs, or more importantly, choosing how to play short chips and pitches from around the green. The ball will NOT hold well. I foresee this changing as the greens are used, but for right now, it can be frustrating to watch your perfectly struck 60 yard pitch go bounding to the upper tier or off the back. The fairways are also firm and run quite a bit off the tee, and the rough is very average at best - there are bare spots and others that are overly spongy. You're a good deal better off being in the bunkers which are quite honestly some of the best I have seen at a course under $80/round. They aren't flashy with the blinding white Augusta-sand that has become inexplicably popular lately, but it's good quality sand with an appropriate firmness and amount which is like heaven to a good bunker player. I'm not wishing your ball into the sand, but if you do end up there, let me know how you liked it - it's a bit of a silver lining, I suppose.
So what do I think overall? I enjoyed my round at Skylinks - it's a course that won't beat you up and if you can get out of golf-snob mode, you might enjoy yourself too. The green fees are high for what they can offer, but given the alternatives of saving a few bucks and playing a 6 hour round on a Saturday morning at one of the nearby courses, Skylinks is worth considering every now and then. At the price they ask, I wouldn't make it my regular track of choice, but if you can deal with the fact that there is not a course I can think of that would rate higher on the ambient noise scale (Long Beach Airport is literally 50 feet from some parts of the course) and that you are sometimes looking at strip malls, suburban housing, chain link fencing, and Cessna 172s, give the new Skylinks a try.
