Another day, another SCGA outing at a course I hadn't played yet. It was a smaller group for Bear Creek today, so they had us slotted for regular tee times starting at 11:00. I was in the second-to-la... Continue »

Another day, another SCGA outing at a course I hadn't played yet. It was a smaller group for Bear Creek today, so they had us slotted for regular tee times starting at 11:00. I was in the second-to-last group at 11:48 and things moved along well. We pushed the group ahead a little, but never had to wait much and the group behind never pushed at all, so it was a nice relaxed pace around 4.5 hours. The course was in good condition overall. The tee boxes had excellent turf that was beautifully maintained, but a few of the blues today were positioned on unlevel sections. The fairways were playing firm and fast with lots of roll-out. There were some brown sections and thinner areas, but I generally had very good lies to hit from. The rough was pretty nice throughout. Mostly cut down, but the grass was just sticky enough to make you work. Then, there are some sections of super deep stuff around some bunkers and the outer edges of certain holes. That is definitely to be avoided. I wasn't in any greenside bunkers, but they looked decent. I was in one fairway trap and it was good. The greens were very nice. They were soft and receptive, and then rolling true at medium speeds. There were a few bumpy spots here and there from old ball marks and a some greens still looked to be recovering from their aeration, but generally I thought they played great. This course is very different from how I imagined it in my head, especially give the location. That's not necessarily a bad thing, though. Just different than I imagined. I liked the front nine running through some really, really nice homes and providing some interesting holes with a little creek bed crossing through a few times. Then the back nine is more of an open links style with cool bunkering and some interesting sections of rough where they moved a lot of earth to create some unusual shelves and features. Both sides have plenty of neat old oak trees peppered throughout that often come very much into play. This is a Nicklaus course, so I expected tough greens. These did not disappoint and a few would easily be categorized as truly wacky. Maybe the most extreme Nicklaus greens I've personally played. Most are large, the shapes are often unusual and there are all sorts of shelves, humps and bumps to negotiate on approach shots, chips and putts. Kind of silly at times, but also a whole lot of fun to play greens that are so tricked out. The club is under new ownership and there are rumblings it might go public at some point. If it does, it would be worthy of adding to the great Temecula area rotation.