atpennell

We had high hopes for playing the links course earlier this week; unfortunately, those were not realized!
First, the good things: The course is beautiful and in great shape! Facilities are nice and the cart service was friendly and adequate. Jim, one of the marshals on the course, stood out and was responsible for salvaging our day. Thank you, Jim!
Now, the other things: Our tee time was at 1:30. We arrived a few minutes after noon and the place is packed! We check in and are greeted with a semi- warm response. We ask for some range balls as we arrived in plenty of time to warm up and are informed that the driving range is closed in the middle of the day on Tuesdays… We are disappointed because that offers us no chance to work the kinks out after driving 3 hours to get to Opelika. The person checking us in barely offered us a smile. Not what I expect from a pro shop employee at an expensive golf course (or any golf course for that matter). Oh well, we go to the bar and have one beer, them mosey down to the putting green which is nice. The views are beautiful. We go to the 1st hole we find out that there are two outings being played that day (a Tuesday). Unfortunately, our tee time placed us directly behind one of those outings. The starter hopes that we are not in a hurry as it is going to be a long afternoon. He is right. Two hours later, we are on the fifth hole, after having to wait for every shot. We are about to quit because the pace is so slow. That’s when Jim shows up and asks if we would like to move ahead of this outing, play the course out of order but not have to wait! Yes! We skip ahead and play #15-18, then drive to #6 and catch up with the group again on #12. The outing had not completed 12 holes in over 4.5 hours. We quit playing at that point, but at least got to play 15 holes (thanks to Jim). The pro shop should not schedule tee times that close to an outing!
Even if the pace had not been so painfully slow, I did not really enjoy playing the course. It is very hilly and the majority of approach shots are severely uphill, leaving you with a blind approach. The greens are large with several levels and in good shape but often surrounded by large mounds so missing the green by 5 yards might result in a 30 yard pitch after the ball bounces hard away from the greens. The course plays very long, even from the white tees!
After we quit and passed the outing in front of us, we were surrounded by a group of guys waiting on us to finish. Almost before we can stop the cart, a young man is behind us placing our head covers on clubs, etc. Please let us get our, keys, wallets etc. out of our bags without having to reach around you! I hate when that happens! He never said hello, asked about our round, or anything. The only thing he said was when he asked if we wanted to carry our bags to our car or if he should leave them at the bag drop. We tipped him and got the car, only to find that he had not even bothered to clean our irons. Wow!
Overall, a big disappointment! Things seemed to be more about getting our money than us enjoying our experience. This was my first time at one of the R.T. Jones trail courses. Not sure I will ever try another.

We booked an early afternoon t-time on a Tuesday. We arrived early to have time for lunch and practice range. We were informed that the driving range was close on Tuesday from Noon-2pm (our t-time was 1:30). We also became aware there was a large group outing. In fact there were two large groups our t-time followed one of them on the Links Course. A twosome following a scramble event is miserable. The only positive experience of the entire day was when the starter (Jim) came and found us finishing the 4th hole (1.5 hours into our round!!). He offered to take us to a hole on back nine that would place us in front of the group and we could circle back around and hopefully complete 18 before dark. It worked great until we caught up with the group again when we circled back around and were only able to finish 15 holes. What made this disappointing day worse was the poor customer service and bad attitude of all staff members with whom we interacted except for the starter (Jim). From check-in (being informed about the closed driving range and oh, by the way, you're behind a group outing) to our lunch in the grill, to our unloading our bags at the end, no one exhibited friendly or customer service oriented attitudes. It is a great course, but based on the poor customer service, I would not go back and do not recommend Grand National to any of my golfing friends.