As tee times continue to be a tough get sometimes, I was happy to snag a 9:40am tee time on a Saturday at Chester Washington this weekend with three friends, hoping conditions had improved since my la... Continue »

As tee times continue to be a tough get sometimes, I was happy to snag a 9:40am tee time on a Saturday at Chester Washington this weekend with three friends, hoping conditions had improved since my last visit.

Luckily, the greens had - to an extent. They were a little smoother, a little less squishy and rolled a little better than before, but are still very bumpy and there were a few that had quite a bit of damage on them that made you rethink where you could drop your bump and runs. Aside from that though, the rest is still a mess.

Tee boxes are so shaggy and unkempt that you might as well be lying three in the fairway, while the bunkers are very thin and grainy and you'll often have to decide whether to hit a standard bunker shot or try to chip it out of there.

But the absolute worst nightmare is the Torrey-esque rough currently on display here. I'm not sure if it was an homage to the US Open, or someone just forgot to put 'mow down the rough' on the daily checklist. It's absolutely brutal and plays terribly. I'm all for a nice bit of rough to add to the challenge, but this was far beyond that.

On top of that, the round took around five and a half hours with no cart service to be seen anywhere for the entire day. And all that for a bargain price of $60! Not a chance it was worth that on this visit, but that's where we are right now with SoCal golf sometimes. My friends concurred that CW will be off the rotation list for a while until I read some other reviews that are showing it's made some improvements.

Played at Chester Washington yesterday with an 11:40 tee time. I got a cart and we played from the blue tees for a pricey $60 for what you're getting here. Surprisingly there were plenty of carts avai... Continue »

Played at Chester Washington yesterday with an 11:40 tee time. I got a cart and we played from the blue tees for a pricey $60 for what you're getting here. Surprisingly there were plenty of carts available and POP actually moved pretty decently for most of the day, with a few pile-ups here and there.

The layout at CW is fine enough - it's not going to wow you at any point, but it's still a decent challenge with small greens, some elevations at the end of the front nine, and tough shots from non-perfect lies. Get used to it.

The greens however are the biggest issue. Ever walked on one of those pool covers when the pool was full underneath? That's what the greens at CW feel like when you walk on them. Spongy barely begins to describe it. So while they are quite receptive to shots in this shape, they also are pocked with tons of ball marks, have amazingly inconsistent speeds (mostly slow), and your ball can turn on a dime en route to the hole with so many lumps and bumps. Really poor.

Fairways are okay but you're going to be battling with thin lies almost as often as you find good ones. The rough is quite thick and grabby in most areas of importance, while there were also plenty of bunkers that were muddied or even had standing water. The dry ones were about a layer short of being good. Tee boxes were mostly okay, being flat and had decent enough coverage. The least of my worries here.

No cart service all day and a very inconvenient snack shop at the turn. Carts are also as basic as you can get. I've seen this course in much better shape and hope that it can return there soon.

Well I finally got a chance to play Chester as our regular group got a couple of tee times starting at 7:40 on 11/5. Never played here before but I do have a friend who works as a starter here and he... Continue »

Well I finally got a chance to play Chester as our regular group got a couple of tee times starting at 7:40 on 11/5. Never played here before but I do have a friend who works as a starter here and he as always suggested I play here. The marshal would not let us enter through the gate from the parking lot until 10 minutes before tee time which I thought was ridiculous. I realize there is a covid thing going on now but when our time was within 10 minutes, he still wouldn’t let us in. He finally relented. Other than that, check in was fine. Chuck, the starter is a good one. We walked and pace of play was around 3 ½ hours. This course is very rough around the edges to say the least. Fairways are not very good. On the tee, I was looking for areas to hit my drive hoping to hit an area that had some good coverage. Not much rough to speak of except for some thick kikuyu or hard pan. Tee boxes were fine. Bunkers weren’t bad either. I was in 2 bunkers and they were damp but very playable. The greens on this day were pretty good and many are very small. Noticed the previous reviews talked about bumpy greens but we didn’t have that. They rolled rather well and deceptively faster than they looked actually. There were many 3 putts in our group as they were hitting it past the hole. I enjoyed the lay out at Chester. Not super challenging but still fun. Easy to walk as it’s mostly flat but there are a couple of holes that are hilly. Also, it’s not long from the blues at about 6200 yards but there are a couple of par 4’s that I couldn’t reach in 2 playing more than 440 yards. The par 3’s are tough with all but one playing over 190 yards. The conditions though just aren’t the best and to me that’s the only knock on this course. The course is not close to me but if invited out, I would play it again.

Played Sunday afternoon. Paired with a threesome.

Pace of play was around 3.5 hours. Not bad for a Sunday.

Greens in OK shape. Not great and very bouncy from afternoon sun. Hard to keep a li... Continue »

Played Sunday afternoon. Paired with a threesome.

Pace of play was around 3.5 hours. Not bad for a Sunday.

Greens in OK shape. Not great and very bouncy from afternoon sun. Hard to keep a line even with a well struck putt. Greens are a little on the fluffy side and hard to find a consistent pace.

Rough around green fairly lush but the further you get away from the green the thinner the lies. In fact I would say there was little to no coverage byond 15 feed from the green or even the first cut of rough.

Fairways lies were thin at best. Still Ok to hit from.

Rough cut to same height as fairways but as I said earlier the further you get way from the fairways the thinner the rough becomes; almost to the point of hard-pan.

Tee boxes were flatish. Bunkers along fairway were inconsistent from having a nice layer of sand to non existent. Bunkers around the greens had decent sand.

Overall was happy with pace. Conditions for the course are just OK.

Just wished the greens were in better shape instead of being so bumpy.

Played today mid-morning. 2-some with a single. Pace of play was fast with 10 minute spacing. We were keeping up with the group ahead. Greens were lightly dusted. They ran true with well struck... Continue »

Played today mid-morning. 2-some with a single. Pace of play was fast with 10 minute spacing. We were keeping up with the group ahead. Greens were lightly dusted. They ran true with well struck putts. They ran consistently around a medium/fast pace. Bunkers around greens were thin. I treated them like waste areas so it was easier to play out of. Fairways were greenish. They had good coverage. They were decent to hit from. Rough was cut to the same height as fairway. Beyond the rough was all dried out. Loads of thin lies. Tee boxes were flat if you moved behind the tee markers. Pace of play was fast (sub 4 hours walking). Almost beat the sun from coming out midday to early afternoon. The grounds keepers were removing kikuya around the greens and sanding the exposed areas. Conditions were decent for type of course. Very playable. And the pace of play was fun with the 10 minute spacing. Covid-19 notes: Show up 10 minutes ahead of your tee time to be admitted onto the course. Wear a mask at least in the common areas. Wash your hands (Hand Sanitizer available). Single rider per cart.

I haven't been to Chester Washington for a number of years. Pre-Covid, the course let out fivesomes and I never had a single tee time that went out within thirty minutes of the booked time. I return... Continue »

I haven't been to Chester Washington for a number of years. Pre-Covid, the course let out fivesomes and I never had a single tee time that went out within thirty minutes of the booked time. I returned today with a 6:50 a.m. tee time and having heard that groups were limited to foursomes.

With some early morning fog and a few earlier tee times that booked a time in the dark but wanted to wait for some light, we got off about 15 minutes late. After the first two holes though, we had no POP issues and we got through in 3:50. This course does tend to get more novice and casual golfers though, and it seemed like the POP may have slowed down for the groups behind us.

Greens appear to have been recently aerated and are healing, but not to the point they have been rolled yet. Everything seemed to be slow, bumpy, and straight. The greens themselves are relatively small which is one of the few challenging things about this course.

Fairways were sufficiently lush by LA County standards, with occasional dry parts.

Rough was definitely thick and uneven.

As the most recent review indicated, the tee boxes were in bad shape. In many instances, the course had three sets of tees all playing from the same spot. While that may help with POP, it means that they get extremely beat up because novices and more experienced players are all hitting from the same spot.

It was fun to come back to CW after not having been here for a few years, but I won't be rushing back. This is a great course for the novice golfer who wants to play a full course or for someone who just wants a casual game with friends and does not care if the course is rough around the edges.

Played Sunday afternoon with cart as a single following a walking twosome.

Pace of play was steady. Kept in constant view of group ahead. The group behind never caught up to me. Loads of golfers... Continue »

Played Sunday afternoon with cart as a single following a walking twosome.

Pace of play was steady. Kept in constant view of group ahead. The group behind never caught up to me. Loads of golfers skipping around the course playing holes in between the group spacing which was frequent.

Greens were OK. They were slow/medium speed. They did not hold their line and were a little spongy for my taste but playable nevertheless.

Bunkers were well stocked with sand. No rakes but definitely easy to hit from.

Fairways were for the most part lush. Good cushion underneath made hitting from fairways easy.

Rough was varying lengths from thin to bushy. What you saw was what you got. Definitely on the thick side but playable.

Tee Boxes were my personal pet peeve. For me I felt the tee boxes were too lush. Easy to stick tee into ground but the fescue was left high and thick. Finally teed my shots slightly above grass since the tee boxes allowed you to sink into ground.

Pace of play was decent. Conditions though not ideal were very playable. Definitely a course to add to your rotation if only because it's close and even with decent conditions it did not feel as busy as it has in the past. Recommended.

Was lured back by some friends into a Sunday round at Chester Washington despite my desire to take a few weeks off after some devastatingly bad play of late. Sometimes you just need to recharge but th... Continue »

Was lured back by some friends into a Sunday round at Chester Washington despite my desire to take a few weeks off after some devastatingly bad play of late. Sometimes you just need to recharge but the course is close by and I decided to see where I was at after some time off for my back and just a general hiatus from the sport.

My concerns about POP on a weekend at CW were fortunately not realized as we moved at a pretty good pace all day with the only real wait coming on 18. This facility in at least one way has benefited from the virus regulations by better staggering tee times - an issue that always manifested itself here in the form of 3-4 groups always waiting at the first tee and an awful POP throughout. At least on this day, that was not the case, so that was nice.

Carts seem to always be at a premium here and Sunday morning was not much different. We had to wait for two carts to be recharged and cleaned but eventually took off around 10 minutes late. Weekend greens fee + carts is fairly steep $59 for this place, which wouldn't be that bad at all if conditions were much better. But they aren't.

Main focus is the greens. Spongy, slow, bumpy and no line of delineation from the rough/apron. Parts of the greens are encroached upon by the grass from the rough and there are no smooth edges. Even found some putter-shaped holes in the greens, apparently from a frustrated set of previous golfers (ironically not me this time!). But overall, just terrible shape.

Fairways are a little less than good with thin lies throughout with the occasional lush area, while the rough is wispy mayhem that isn't much fun to play from at any point. I was in one fairway bunker and it was okay, but the greenside bunkers didn't look like much to write home about, but I can't say for sure without having played them. Tee boxes? Also a mess. Not been cut or sectioned off for quite some time it appears. Very shaggy and sometimes so spongy like the greens that I had trouble getting in the short tees I was using since I've temporarily retired my driver.

So, in a very ironic twist, my best compliment to Chester Washington on a Sunday morning was their POP being quite good - this is great and should be kept up with unwavering vigor. And we can definitely let a lot of the other conditions slide, but not the greens. They are in some dire need of even the most basic attention. And I hope they receive it. Soon.

I arrived this morning for early tee time only to find out there were no electric carts. When I booked online it said carts were available. I am recovering from knee surgery & unable to walk for long ... Continue »

I arrived this morning for early tee time only to find out there were no electric carts. When I booked online it said carts were available. I am recovering from knee surgery & unable to walk for long distances yet. Sure wish they would get their act together like most other courses. I'm not sure whether it's American Golf or the course itself. What a waste of time! I could have played somewhere else. Get your s*** together people ! I doubt they care though...