Bjorn7660584

This is my first time playing this course this year, but this is one of my go-to courses in the Frederick area.

Greens are a little behind other courses in the area and seem to have been aerated quite recently, from which they have not recovered yet. Fairways in good condition.

My biggest issue this round was that there is some major work ongoing on the 16th hole. They've put in a temporary 16th hole, which is a joke, and as a result they've also ruined hole 17 with a temporary tee box. I didn't see anything about this on their website when booking. They would have been much better of just skipping the 16th and play the 17th as it should be played. And most importantly, they should let people know about this on their website! As this came as a surprise, it kind of ruined the day.

The fairways and tee boxes were in great shape and everything around the course was well maintained. However, many of the greens were not quite up to that standard, as they were uneven and the roll was not true. Many unexpected bumps on many putts. Some had clearly been damaged and you could see the attempts to repair.

Another thing I want to complain about is that when we played it was cart path only. It had rained for an hour or so the night before, the first significant rain for many days. On the day we played the sun was shining from the morning and the course was completely dry when we started just after 12 PM. I can understand they want to protect the golf course when it's wet, but that was not the case as far as I could see. There were very few people playing so I can't imagine that a 90 degree rule would have ruined the fairways. This is a very difficult course to play cart path only, especially with the heat index above a 100, so when a thunderstorm moved in as we were playing the back nine, for the first time I can remember we are actually glad to have to stop. This ruined an otherwise great experience.

I've played Whiskey Creek a number of times before and have always been very pleased, but this time the course conditions and general experience did not match the standards they have set themselves..
Some of the issues:
* Many of the bunkers were unplayable. It rained a lot last week, but they should be playable by now.
* There was a lot of divots that had not been fixed. Many of them were clearly many days old.
* Many ball marks on greens that had not been repaired
* Three fairways were cart-path only due to aerification of the fairways. They did not clean the big pellets of the fairways until late in the day, so they were basically unplayable.

And finally to complain about the group ahead of us. They were extremely slow (5:15 hour round) and were throwing cigarette and cigar stubs all over the place, especially around greens and tees. Twice I had to brush cigar ash away from my putting line. I know it's difficult for the course staff to handle the smoking, but there were no rangers visible to make them speed up play.

I know this is a negative review of a basically great course, but this day they did not live up to the expectations I have of this course.

This is a really good and challenging course which utilizes a hilly landscape so that many holes have extreme elevation changes. As there are many forced carries, and not just off the tee, but also in front of the greens, it is probably not suitable for beginners.

This is a very nice course to play. It has been dry for a number of days so the greens were fast but generally fair. Some of the green side bunkers were almost unplayable, felt like hitting concrete, but others were ok.
All in all a very nice day in good weather and good conditions.

The course itself was good, but there were two things that could have been better. It was cart path only, even though the course was not wet and the rough was very thick. You often had trouble finding your ball even though you were only a few yards off the fairway. It was also very difficult to hit from.

We were told the reason for the cart path only rule was an upcoming qualifier. It would be nice to visualize things like that as it can affect your selection of courses to play.

Otherwise a very good day on a a nice course.

Course was in good condition. First nine are easier than the back nine. As one of the staff told me, tongue in cheek, "the first nine builds your confidence, but the back nine destroys it". Many of the holes are challenging, but fair, but one hole is decidedly unfair and that is the par 5 13th. There is a long downward stretch of the fairway, where you would normally be landing your second shot, that has a severe right to left slope and everything that lands on the fairway ends in a wilderness on the left, where you are bound to lose the ball. The difficulty of this hole is out of proportion to the rest of the course.