Played here yesterday morning. I had booked a 7:29 time as a single the day before, but showed up early. They really don't let singles out alone early, so they ended up putting me with the first group... Continue »

Played here yesterday morning. I had booked a 7:29 time as a single the day before, but showed up early. They really don't let singles out alone early, so they ended up putting me with the first group out at first light around 7:20. They were all regulars and pretty quick players, so we got around the front in about 1.5 hours. Unfortunately, they let groups off the back until 9:00 and several of them were fivesomes. It really slowed down and the back nine took almost 2.5 hours to finish. Hate that, but I was still happy with a 4-hour round on this course that is notoriously busy/slow (especially in season). Weekday rack rate was $49 with cart, though this would be a pretty good course to walk.

The course was in okay shape. Not all that impressive considering this is peak season in Yuma. The tee boxes were adequate. The fairways were overseeded and mostly pretty good. Some thin spots and inconsistencies, but fine enough for a muni course. The rough is dormant and best avoided. It is shaved down, but it's more like hitting off soft dirt with some tangled kikuyu and bermuda roots mixed in for added fun. Some spots around the greens were overseeded and nicer to play from. The greens were firm-ish yet kind of fuzzy with the overseed. A little bumpy at times with speeds that are very hard to figure out because a few of the greens here have some big humps. Downhill/sidehill putts really tough to stop while it seemed impossible to get an uphill putt to the hole. With the moderately hilly terrain here and I'm assuming some natural pull toward the Colorado River, figuring out what was uphill or downhill wasn't always easy. Definitely some tricky putting surfaces.

Lastly, the bunkers were awful. They were decently maintained/raked, but the "sand" is more like a coarse light gravel and there is no softness underneath. I couldn't pull off a normal "splash" kind of sand shot, so I ended up just trying to pick it with my PW like a normal chip and that worked out better. Fortunately, none of them have big lips and are easy to escape no matter what shot you use. You could easily putt out of some of them.

The layout was better than expected with more hills than some pictures I saw online led me to expect—even though "Hills" is in their name. Nothing too major, but just naturally rolling terrain and the slight changes in elevation impact many approach shots. Big greens that are pretty accessible. Not too much trouble to get into anywhere with a small smattering of trees along each fairway and a lot of parallel holes. Decent track by Yuma standards, which are pretty low, but certainly nothing worth going out of your way for unless you are crazy like me.