20 years ago, I swore off Shorecliffs even though it was 4 miles from home. It was a mess, and then a landslide made it more of a mess. Time passed. I mellowed. Shorecliffs got a new managing group,... Continue »

20 years ago, I swore off Shorecliffs even though it was 4 miles from home. It was a mess, and then a landslide made it more of a mess. Time passed. I mellowed. Shorecliffs got a new managing group, and money started to go into the course. Nice new clubhouse and restaurant. Nice practice green and decent chipping areas that I use for practice weekly. Reviews started to pour in about the improvements and positive trends. Finally, the stars (schedule, openings, hot deal) aligned, and my 20 year hiatus from Shorecliffs came to an end today. THE KING IS NOT DEAD! LONG LIVE THE KING! Shorecliffs is still awful. Worse than anything I have played in 20 years, since Shorecliffs. Here we go. Greens are shaggy, soft, and bumpy. Nothing over 2 feet rolled straight. At least the grass is there, it could be cut short and rolled and I think they would be fine. I might give them the benefit of the doubt, but at least 6 of the cups were cut at ground level. 2 of the cups were actually at grass level, you could run your hand over the hole and feel the cup edge. I can't remember ever seeing cups that poorly seated. If they don't care about that, I doubt they care about shaggy greens. And an unannounced surprise, all Blue and White tee boxes were closed. So we played from the Ladies' Tees for half of the holes, and the other half the tees were actually ahead of the ladies tees. This already short 5700 yard course played around 4200 today. There was a 267 yard par 5. It was downhill and downwind. I was one good bounce from driving the green on a Par 5. As for the layout changes over 20 years, as others have stated, the nines have flipped. Now you get to start on the two tightest fairways, without having a range to warm up on. Good luck. The landslide lost Par 4 on the now Back 9 has been replaced by making the Par 5 #10 (old #1) into a 150 yard Par 3, followed by a 220 yard Par 4 (?). And that is a straight 220, although we were playing it at 175. The hole before the landslide is a complete mess. Tees way left of the hole, so you actually have to hit over trees on the left side of the fairway to get to the fairway (that you can't see). On my golf tracker spreadsheet, 20 years ago I left this liitle note on the Shorecliffs line.... "play only if less than $3". I think I may have been a bit too generous. Highly not recommended.