Played at Riverbend this morning, walking the course in 4 hours on the dot. Teed off at 6:30, about 5 minutes ahead of our scheduled tee time as a twosome. At the 3rd hole we caught the two in front o... Continue »

Played at Riverbend this morning, walking the course in 4 hours on the dot. Teed off at 6:30, about 5 minutes ahead of our scheduled tee time as a twosome. At the 3rd hole we caught the two in front of us and finished the round with them as a four. It felt a lot slower than 4 hours, as we waited on many shots, but the waits were never very long.

Conditions were a bit of a mixed bag. The greens were very nice, quite firm, a little quick, and really only holding well struck shots. They putted relatively true, and although I had trouble reading the breaks today, speed seemed pretty consistent. Fairways were ok, when in the short grass I had good lies, and got lots of roll. Things got pretty sketchy once you're off the fairway, sometimes you'd get a reasonable lie, but for the most part the rough could give you just about anything. Lots of bare spots here and there, just really inconsistent. I found 3 traps, two greenside and one fairway, and they were a bit on the thin side, especially the fairway bunker I found on #18. My buddy found a couple of greenside bunkers that he felt were extremely thin, the couple I found were playable. Tee boxes for the most part were uniformly awful, tons of divot damage. Most are pretty level, but there aren't many that have healthy grass on them. Even holes where you would always hit driver had craters all over the place.

In general, Riverbend just doesn't drain very well, and I pretty much avoid the place if there's been any rain. You can tell that there really hasn't been any rain at all lately, because this place is just bone dry. Everything felt very firm, and it was a pleasant change of pace from how it normally is here. Lots of places are just about fried, however, but thankfully they've marked the majority of the worst spots as ground under repair. At $32 to walk it, it was worth it, and I can see me getting back here before we get to the wet season.