Played Strawberry for the first time last week late in the afternoon with a buddy. Arrived early, and asked during check-in if we could tee off early and was told no due to other tee times. Multiple... Continue »

Played Strawberry for the first time last week late in the afternoon with a buddy. Arrived early, and asked during check-in if we could tee off early and was told no due to other tee times. Multiple foursomes teed off during our brief warm up, and while we loaded into our cart, we asked if we were going to play with another twosome, but were told the twosome we were due to play with went early!
Carts are very basic and had empty sand bottles, no cooler, or ball/club washer on them. It did have GPS though. Front nine is completely forgetable, while the back nine is more imaginative and requires strategy. We were both underwhelmed by the course conditions and pace of play for this South OC course. When the best thing about your course is the quality of sand in the bunkers, something is wrong.

Played on 1/19/25, not much else to add. Greens were excellent and bunkers were solidly 8.5/10. Tee boxes needed work on about half the holes (is 10 ever going to get fixed?). Fairways and rough were ... Continue »

Played on 1/19/25, not much else to add. Greens were excellent and bunkers were solidly 8.5/10. Tee boxes needed work on about half the holes (is 10 ever going to get fixed?). Fairways and rough were tight and rolled out a bunch, but I think the biggest offender was hole 12: tons of sanded areas in the middle of the fairway. Only worth it right now if you’re got the membership, but overall conditions were still enjoyable to my group.

Played Strawberry on 1/17/25. Love the layout, staff is nice, but man the grass to dollar ratio is way off here.

Tee boxes are the worst offenders. On most tee boxes you won't get grass under your ... Continue »

Played Strawberry on 1/17/25. Love the layout, staff is nice, but man the grass to dollar ratio is way off here.

Tee boxes are the worst offenders. On most tee boxes you won't get grass under your feet and the ball at the same time. Mostly, it is just sand coverage. Fairways are a little better, but there are still large areas of many fairways that are just sand.

Greens are pretty good, couple of rough spots here or there, but nothing really troublesome. Sand traps were real nice.

Course was busy, and pace was 4:45. Started out quick through 8, then slowed for the back 9.

Can't recommend Strawberry at the price they are asking. Hopefully this is just a winter condition, and the grass will fill in for spring. I think the fairways will be good, but those tee boxes have a long way to go.

Played SF for first time this weekend. An early tee time before 9AM, so POP was 4 hours. Course was in great shape. Tee on 10 was moved up due to some landslide issues above the reservoir. Greens we... Continue »

Played SF for first time this weekend. An early tee time before 9AM, so POP was 4 hours. Course was in great shape. Tee on 10 was moved up due to some landslide issues above the reservoir. Greens were smooth, speeds were quick, but greenskeeper must have had argument with Head Pro the night before, so golfers would complain about the Monster Day like pin positions. Practically all were on crowns. Rough was inconsistent, especially around greens and perimeters of bunkers. Tee boxes level, traps had plenty of sand. Beautiful area to put a golf course. Lots of wildlife. Loved the "waterfall" by 18 green, although disappointed to see the PVC pipe at the top creating the illusion. Nice range, although when finishing play it was mobbed with players waiting to find a spot. Food was good, great setting to enjoy lunch outside clubhouse. Worth the money IMO.

First out at 6AM on a very pleasant morning. Nice to get out early and beat the crowds and the heat. Lots of maintenance and a whole bunch of sprinklers to contend with. In all fairness, they did turn... Continue »

First out at 6AM on a very pleasant morning. Nice to get out early and beat the crowds and the heat. Lots of maintenance and a whole bunch of sprinklers to contend with. In all fairness, they did turn them off to allow us to play, but nevertheless, it was a distraction at times.

The course was in overall very nice condition. Green speeds were slower than usual because of the watering but were very receptive. Good coverage on the fairways. Bunkers had not yet all been raked, so it was different on each instance. Staff was great! They allowed us to go as a twosome which was greatly appreciated. Didn't try to play too fast because we wanted to avoid catching the back nine play, but still able to finish in a little over 2 1/2 hours.

Enjoyed the course as I always have, but it is simply too expensive to make play with any frequency. Wish they would return to giving senior rates early rather than after 11AM. That would influence my decision to return

Was able to snag early morning times at SF the last 2 weeks, so figured I should update GK on the conditions. They will allow singles to make tee times, but you must call and cannot book online. Playe... Continue »

Was able to snag early morning times at SF the last 2 weeks, so figured I should update GK on the conditions. They will allow singles to make tee times, but you must call and cannot book online. Played Tuesday Feb. 7 and Monday Feb. 13th. Both times tee'd off before my scheduled times of 7:20am and 7:00am, respectively. Pace of play was good at 4:13 the first round with no one in front or behind of us. Our 3-some were having our challenges causing the somewhat slow time. Monday round done in 3:40 playing as a 4-some, love that.

Conditions for both rounds were generally good. Tee boxes level and no problem finding a good spot to hit from. They place the tee markers fairly wide here on most holes giving you plenty of space to find a good spot. Fairways appear to be dormant Bermuda, providing lots of rollout and nice lies to hit from. Rough not very thick and won't prevent a poor shot from rolling into the ESA around many holes. Bunkers excellent with lots of fluffy white sand. Greens fairly hard with some ball marks, fairly smooth with consistent medium speed. Generally hold wedges well, longer irons will rollout a bit. Second round greens seemed less marked up.

Front 9 layout is okay, but you can find trouble fairly easily. I rate the back 9 just below spectacular with the reservoir just about full after all the recent rains. All houses are well back from the course and pretty much out of sight.

At $125 for a weekday it is a little pricey (welcome to the OC). Second round got a Senior discount paying $90 and $6 for about 25 range balls. A little better deal, but $6 for below average range balls is a bit annoying.

It is now in my rota of courses and I recommend if you don't mind overpaying a bit.

Played this morning with the Orange County Mens Club teeing off at 8am from blue tees playing with good friends Patrick, Melanie and Kevin. This Sunday it was all grass on the driving range and after... Continue »

Played this morning with the Orange County Mens Club teeing off at 8am from blue tees playing with good friends Patrick, Melanie and Kevin. This Sunday it was all grass on the driving range and after a few warm ups off we went. Carts have GPS and Bluetooth so one could play their music if desired. This course is 10 minutes from my house and I always seem to forget about it. Fairways were in my opinion wide and very nice however on 2 others they were roped off and resodded according to marshals so if ball landed in there just remove and drop outside of it. Tee boxes are all level and well maintained, bunkers had nice white sand in them and were very easy to play from. Greens are almost completely healed from aeration another week or 2 and they will be perfect. Greens had a lot of subtle breaks and they were very good to putt on and they held their shots well. The course I thought was in fantastic shape and I would play it again anytime. Now I’m not sure if the course is worth north of 150.00 is what I believe the rack rate is for Sunday Morning but it’s definitely worth the 75.00 rate during the week and if you have the loyalty card and you are a senior it’s even more affordable. The restaurant is also particularly good as well. Definitely a must play if in the area…

Hadn't played this course in a few years because of the almost the doubling of prices. At $155 for a Sunday morning round, I expected perfection. What we received was mediocre at best. The course i... Continue »

Hadn't played this course in a few years because of the almost the doubling of prices. At $155 for a Sunday morning round, I expected perfection. What we received was mediocre at best. The course is in a nice area and the layout is a tale of 2 nines. Front and back are like two different courses, but in a good way. Tee boxes were level, if not firm and the sand traps were perfect. Green were super fast, but over half of them had disease on them and some stupid silly pin placements on the sides of hills made putting a joke. The fairways are the worst part of this course. While generally decent coverage, there were a lot of areas with thin coverage, GUR, and different grasses that just made this "premium" course feel very municipal. The course is pretty unforgiving with seemingly good drives getting punished as some of the fairways roll off the edges pretty easily. Service from the staff was exceptional, however the course conditions definitely don't justify the high cost. This is a $85-$95 course at best, but because you are in Irvine, it's double the price. unfortunately won't be back any time soon.

Finally made it out to Strawberry Farms for the first time today and my expectations were definitely off from the start. I had heard that this course was overpriced for the experience and a bit too qu... Continue »

Finally made it out to Strawberry Farms for the first time today and my expectations were definitely off from the start. I had heard that this course was overpriced for the experience and a bit too quirky and difficult. Reviews on conditions always seemed a bit mixed, but here's what I took from it. First off, the front nine and back nine are wildly different. While the back is very target-golf oriented and has more water in play, the front is a bit more traditional and open but there is trouble to be found on every single hole here. It's by no means an easy course, but each hole is quite unique and there are some very intimidating sightlines that aren't quite as terrifying as they look from the tee boxes. Is Strawberry Farms overpriced? Most of the good Orange County courses are, but you definitely get a lot of golf out of this course and will be using plenty of clubs in your bag. The par 3s are all quite challenging and fun, but mostly play about the same lengths (we played the blue tees). The par 5s are long and really threading the needle, and you'll find everything on the par 4s but only one true reachable one if the wind is right. As far as conditions, it's in good not great shape right now. The fairways play pretty nicely but there are definitely some thin spots. The course isn't very 'green' looking right now and looks like it's ripe for some re-seeding, but again, it plays better than it looks. The rough is very playable and easy to hit good shots from, while the sand in the bunkers was quite good. Tee boxes were all in good shape with flat surfaces easily located. Greens rolled very nicely actually but, like the fairways, don't look in optimal shape. That being said, they held shots well and rolled quite true. Not a lot of ball marks is a nice feature. No tricked out greens here but some are pretty small and sloped, but no gimmicky spots which is nice. Speeds are medium fast. We had great cart service numerous times throughout the round and the POP was really good as I don't believe we waited on a single hole after the first one. I really enjoyed the round here despite psyching myself out before taking my first swing. Speaking of first swings, the range is more than adequate even if it's a bit odd-shaped, but very convenient and organized. All the staff here were very nice and accommodating. I would definitely love to play here again although I can see how this difficult course won't be everybody's cup of tea, especially if you're shots are off on the day. It's very easy here to run up big scores with so much OB and so many environmental hazard areas, but you will have a very fun time getting there. And if you have a good round, even better!