Played in the Saturday Rancho Park Golf Club tournament at Brookside #2 and found the course to be lacking in a lot of areas, but it was still a fun day out despite the scorching temperatures that gre... Continue »

Played in the Saturday Rancho Park Golf Club tournament at Brookside #2 and found the course to be lacking in a lot of areas, but it was still a fun day out despite the scorching temperatures that greeted us with a 10:20am tee time.

First off, the driving range is entirely too limited for a two-18 course with this much business. I wish they could find a way to improve that - maybe a second level? It's far from ideal having to wait in a significant line for a stall to open up with limited time before your call.

In terms of course conditions, again, it's not that great but it's playable. There is a massive dirt patch from the concert stages just before the green on the first hole and right after the tee box on the 18th. This section makes the Links at Victoria look like Bandon. After that it's better, but you're never going to confuse this 18 with the more pristine and challenging #1 course.

Greens were in good shape despite all the other issues - no real complaints there. Not too fast or anything, but solid enough. The fairways are dry, thin and a bit haphazard to be honest, but some of the holes are just fine. The bunkers were very thin and not great to hit from, while the rough was not penal in the least and just an extension of the thin conditions from the fairways. Tee boxes were pretty beat up but nothing too awful (we were assigned the white tees for my flight).

As previously mentioned, it was an incredibly hot day so thankful to have the cart service running around but I don't recall seeing a water station to refill the Hydroflask until around the sixth hole or so. Did I mention it was really hot? POP was not really high-intensity but then again it was tournament play so it's what one expects at those events.

So overall it's just not quite as satisfying as the other 18 at Brookside, but could be a heck of a lot closer if the conditions were more favorable. That's obviously tough to maintain though as the summer heat really starts to pound down on Pasadena.