Had the opportunity to play here for the member guest. Course is fantastic. Great condition all around, the layout is really fun and requires you to move the ball both ways. Bunkers in great spots ... Continue »

Had the opportunity to play here for the member guest. Course is fantastic. Great condition all around, the layout is really fun and requires you to move the ball both ways. Bunkers in great spots and really fast and firm greens. Thick Bermuda rough and gives some tough lies. Lots of fun if you get the chance to play.

Played here for the first time yesterday. A friend and I signed up for a charity tournament, mainly just to get to play the course which is otherwise not easily accessed. It was a shotgun start with a... Continue »

Played here for the first time yesterday. A friend and I signed up for a charity tournament, mainly just to get to play the course which is otherwise not easily accessed. It was a shotgun start with a pretty full field. Our group started on the par-3 7th hole (daunting all-carry over water). It was cart-path-only and a scramble format, which is a terrible combination because everyone has to walk to balls separately, figure out which one to play, walk back and forth to the carts to get clubs, etc. Add to that the paths here are kept off to the sides as much as possible, so a lot of walking and a 5.5+ hour round! The course was in nice winter shape, playing better than it looked. The tee boxes were great, other than sanding that was being done on a couple of the par-3s. The fairways are a very thatchy/grabby/fluffy bermuda that was consistent and well-kept. The rough is dormant bermuda that is cut down, but still quite grabby. Scramble format always ensured ideal placed lies, though you still had to account for the club really digging into the turf. We never played out of any bunkers, but I pulled a couple balls out and the sand seemed absolutely perfect. The greens were nice. Just receptive enough and rolling smooth at medium/fast speeds. Not as fast as they looked and I'm sure they can get these surfaces running super quick when they want to. They were lightly top-dressed, as well, but that didn't affect anything. With the light and partly dormant winter conditions not being particularly "pretty," it definitely took away some aesthetic appeal of the course. Overall, I wasn't as impressed with this place as much as I wanted to be considering it is a such an exclusive, high-end club. The facilities are pretty nice and the layout has a lot of character. A few too many blind uphill approaches for my taste, and then the 18th has a blind downhill approach that's kind of awkward. Greens aren't too big and have some undulation, but no putts seemed overly tricky to read. Undoubtedly, the most interesting feature of the course is the bunkering. The bunkers here have a great rugged old school kind of look and they are all deep and very punitive. If you get invited out here for a reasonable price, it's worth the visit. I wouldn't break the bank to play it again, even though I'd like to experience it in a better part of the year and not with such a slow pace of play.

Played here in their member-guest tournament on 11/2-3. I have played here a couple times in the past but never in a tournament like this. I ate too much, drank too much, and had too many cigars but i... Continue »

Played here in their member-guest tournament on 11/2-3. I have played here a couple times in the past but never in a tournament like this. I ate too much, drank too much, and had too many cigars but it was a blast. The course conditions were fantastic with perfect bunkers, fast smooth greens, and lush and level tee boxes. The rough was nice but pentalizing due to the type of grass. I think it was kukuyu....grabbing type where the ball sits down and gets tough to get your club head on the ball. Customer service was as you would expect at a private club perfect just like the weather.
One more thing, they had John Cook from the Champions Tour and multiple PGA winner speak with us at dinner.....a real pleasure.

Wow! What a gem! Had the good fortune to play Virginia CC tucked away in a beautiful section of Long Beach on Friday afternoon. This place is pretty phenomenal in every way.

Course conditions? Exqu... Continue »

Wow! What a gem! Had the good fortune to play Virginia CC tucked away in a beautiful section of Long Beach on Friday afternoon. This place is pretty phenomenal in every way.

Course conditions? Exquisite, of course. Very nice greens that rolled true and were probably around a 10.5 on the stimp. Fairways very well manicured and rough that was quite penal and difficult to work your way out of, but fair in the sense that the ample fairways make up for it. The sand was nice, although one of my playing partners complained that it was a nice layer on top but a bit hard underneath, however I never got that impression. And the tee boxes of course were in great shape all around.

The star of the show though is the layout. There are one or two quirky holes, and I personally didn't find the big dropoff at the end of the par 5 18th anything but odd, but the rest of the course is truly stunningly set up. I wish that I had played a much better round to truly enjoy the experience more, but I was humbled in a big way and look forward to a little redemption if I get to play here again.

There is an unexpected hilliness to the course that you would not expect to find in coastal Long Beach, but it blends into the course so very well. There is only one hole where water comes into play, but the rest are well guarded by length and some extremely difficult positioned bunkers criss-crossing the approaches. But the greens themselves for the most part aren't over burdened with huge or crazy undulations - just nice, varied sized greens that reward you for getting past the hard part to reach them.

An all-around terrific experience and don't hesitate for a second to play this wonderful course if you get the chance. I was told there that there are a number of PGA Tour pros who like to play here when they're in LA because it's kind of off the beaten track and doesn't have the same loud reputation as Riviera or LACC, but it's every bit as thrilling to play as I imagine those would be, and that was an opinion substantiated by more than one of the folk I met there who had played them all. Get there.