Played at 1pm on Thursday, 2/15/24, after booking a time as a single on GolfNow. Hustled over after a medical appointment that morning and arrived about 10 minutes before my time. Lo and behold, the s... Continue »

Played at 1pm on Thursday, 2/15/24, after booking a time as a single on GolfNow. Hustled over after a medical appointment that morning and arrived about 10 minutes before my time. Lo and behold, the sheet was running ahead(!) – the single I was to be paired with was long gone, and I was in behind a 4some. They let me play through on #4, and it was smooth sailing to #10, where I found myself behind several groups and waited on every shot on the back nine. Overall time was just over 4 hours.

Conditions were OK. Carts are comfortable with an interactive GPS that gives F/M/B distances to the green, and in green view has those ‘heat’ diagrams that show slope – the kind I have no idea how to read!! Since I don’t play here regularly, I was fooled a few times by seeing slopes/breaks visually that weren’t there, so the ball was heading away from the hole frequently. GPS does not show the locations of other carts – you need to be careful on several blind shots around the course. Saw the cart girl several times. Skipped a stop at the clubhouse at the turn, trying to push forward and finish before dark.

Greens were just OK, thin and pretty firm and rolling quickly. Lots of small debris on the greens from wind or mowing, and most greens had obvious large areas of different/patched turf. All greens had several unrepaired ballmarks scattered around. Fairways generally had good coverage and provided good lies and rollout. Rough was patchy and unpredictable as to what you would get. Tees (I played White [6,000/69.0/124]) were level and in good condition. On the par-3s, tees are set up narrower and it’s more of a challenge to find a level, suitable area to put your peg. I was in 2 greenside bunkers – the bunker on #16 had basically no playing layer – it was basically just machine-scraped hardpan; the greenside bunker fronting #18 had better sand, allowing a normal escape.

Saw a big coyote walking down #7, then heard a lot of pack howling down below the #15 tee. Several greens on the back nine are very challenging as they are severely perched and missing short results in long runouts off the front of the green. The course uses a R/W/B flag rotation – all of the par-5s (1,7,10,13) had red flags today – no imagination on flag placement.

I generally enjoy this course as I think it plays shorter than the card as many of the longer holes play downhill. Conditions have been up and down over the years as the course has had a variety of owners. Glad to see conditions improved from the past and improvements to facilities over the last couple years are evident. Recommended.