Played Tijeras Creek at 3:04pm on a hot sunny Sunday afternoon on 9/6/15. Thanks to GKer sngernz for inviting me to join him – as he is a Creek Card holder, I got the CC twilight rate of $40 (otherwis... Continue »

Played Tijeras Creek at 3:04pm on a hot sunny Sunday afternoon on 9/6/15. Thanks to GKer sngernz for inviting me to join him – as he is a Creek Card holder, I got the CC twilight rate of $40 (otherwise, weekend twilight is $100!!!! YIKES!!!). The course looked fairly busy with a number of people on the range and putting green, and a large number of carts queued up in the staging area, but the course is so spread out that we never saw large numbers of golfers at one time after teeing off – we were just told that the course was “backed up everywhere”.

I echo a lot of Stew’s comments regarding course conditions. The putting green was hairy and slow, and on-course greens were a little faster, but not much. Conditions in general were OK, although bunkers were very inconsistent between almost hardpan and fluffy unevenness. Lots of unrepaired old and new ballmarks on greens. Par-3 tees were especially torn up, and looked like they had been used for multiple days in those locations.

We played through a family group on #10, where only the two daughters were playing (ages – teen and ~9) after trailing them since the 4th hole and watching the younger girl use clubs too large for her, hit 10 to 12 short shots per hole, then 6-putt every green after Dad dropped a ball. Total lack of awareness regarding presence of a child on the course on a crowded weekend afternoon, pace of play, etc. After we got by them, they apparently changed their modus operandi, because they were stacked up against us on every green , in close proximity to the next tee, laughing and making plenty of noise. Overall POP was 4+ hours, but should have been much quicker.

This late in the day many of the water coolers were empty. The marshal came around a few times but got huffy when I made comments about the families/young children holding up play. Saw the cart girl several times. The course looks ragged and in need of some TLC, especially on the back nine, where infrastructure has been neglected, drains are cracked and full of weeds, landscaping has been abandoned or receives little attention. That’s too bad, because the back nine is very peaceful with no homes and has some pretty holes and sightlines. While TC is only a few miles from my house, I play here only about once per year due to the high green fees, waiting for a good deal or some event to make the play worthwhile.