Ballyowen Golf Club

Started at 2:40 pm which should have been OK to get 18 holes in but only played 16. Very slow 4-some a few groups ahead of us but staff didn't address issue when phoned in. Had 3 4-somes backed up at the 7th hole.

First time playing at Ballyowen golf course. The course was in pristine condition the staff was very welcoming and helpful. Will Definitely go back and play again

Challenging course with lots of terrain changes. Pace of play today was excellent, in part because a “helper” located errant shots on several of the holes.

It’s a great round of golf. Greens are near pro-status!! Lightning fast. Course is immaculate.

Ballyowen is a very nice course. Conditioning was good and the design was well thought out with a variety of challenging and diverse holes. Some good risk reward opportunities and nice green complexes. It is a great public course. If you are a public golfer in the New York area who enjoys a real test this is a must-play.

Someone below said it one of the top 3 public courses in the NY metro area. I don’t agree with that, and would put this behind Bethpage Black, Pound Ridge, and Ferry Point. It probably is in the top 5 or certainly top 10 though, which says a lot in a place like New York.

Which brings us to the negative. Pace of play can be slow, and sometimes even brutally slow. Let’s spend a few sentences talking about why this is.

One of the fundamental problems with public golf is that most golfers just aren’t that good. I say this as one of them. They also don’t tend to be very accurate.

With the “average” American public course, if you hit the ball well off line you just drive over to the next fairway and hit it. With harder courses maybe your ball goes into the woods. Most people know that their ball is gone when you hit it into the woods and don’t spend much time looking for it.

Which brings us to links golf. A type of golf which puts a great premium on accuracy and is incredibly difficult if you tend to spray the ball off line. If you hit it offline your ball goes into fescue. Now, even if the average golfer won’t be able to hit it out of there, because the grass is only knee high they think they can find their ball. Which means they look for their ball. For what seems like hours. every. single. hole.

We need to be fair here. Bethpage and Ferry Point can both be very slow as well, along with just about every other public in the New York area. This is a major issue across all of public golf.

So what can Ballyowen due? Just about nothing. They could have their rangers be aggressive, which will anger golfers and give the course a reputation for being only for good golfers or an unfriendly/intimidating place. This isn’t Whistling Straits or the Ocean Course... that reputation would hurt them. They could spread out tee times more. That would help, but golf course economics aren’t great anyways, and they would probably have to raise the price to do this, which would also drive golfers away.

So in short, there’s just about nothing they can do about pace. Pace-sensitive golfers should be careful about when they play, and be prepared that this might take a little while longer than average. Ballyowen is not a course to rush through while trying to get to a dinner reservation. So take your time, enjoy the views, and recognize that at busy times your round might take a little longer than normal.

I have previously reviewed this course, so I'll limit this to two key points:

Conditions - They seemed to have delayed greens aeration until they were sure the lockdown was over (likely to due to inability to get crews working). As of 5/22 the greens still showed some aeration marks, but were 90% of the way there. In another week with some nice weather, they will be perfect as usual. Fairways were top notch. Rough still has to grow in a bit, but typical of mid May.

2) They don't use raised cups, but instead put styrofoam inside which stops the ball from falling more than 1/2" down (everyone knows coronavirus lives in the bottom of golf cups). This has no impact on play and is much much much more enjoyable than raised cups. It's an hour drive for me, but worth it and I have a hard time imagining playing anywhere else until we're back to normal.

By far the best course I have played this year. (I play 3 to 4 times a week and at least 1 new course per week)

Great track. Very challenging. Will definitely play again

I love this course, but I was stuck in a 6+ hour weekend round. If I wanted to play an ungodly long round then I’d pay $100 less for a muni.

Course let fivesomes out and they didn’t manage page of play at all. It does not matter how good a course is: 6+ hour rounds are absurd. When was the last time you played an early fall round that tees off at 12:30 and you were concerned you might not get all 18 in?

Challenging layout with lots of elevation changes and variety.
Pace of play was excellent, thanks in part to a “helper” who located errant shots. A fun experience!

This course has a fabulous layout, very generous fairways, some blind shots, and huge greens, super elevation changes, which makes club selections at times difficult, i would highly recommend playing here if you have $100 to play it, well worth that price in season, but $100 in the winter!!! Cmon man!

Ballyowen has a distinct Irish feel to it (except maybe the use of buggies), great layout, fescue-lined fairways and unmistakenly links-style features. Playing late November, the conditions were still awesome + a bit easier as the fescue was cut down for the off-season. The layout offers some great golf holes, with tough challenges but also some awesome risk-reward opportunities, e.g. with a strong drawn drive, you have only a short iron into the green on your second shot on the Par 5 #10. Miss the drive and you'll drop your knickers in disgust.
No wonder Ballyowen is ranked the #1 public course in NJ.

The course layout is amazing, and it comes with very good conditions. Perfect tee boxes, perfect fairways. The greens were rolling nice too. The sand traps could be better, but they weren't awful. Some had a gravel like material, some were basically dirt, and some had the pure white sand with hardly any rocks in them. They need to update their golf carts, but the place overall is amazing as always.