chris2440009

The course is outstanding with a wide variety of hole designs and great views every direction. This is a spectacular track, beautifully laid out in the natural terrain. The par 4s and 5s are a superb mix of length and uphill / downhill. Many holes have tough tee shots, starting right out of the gate at #1. There are a few holes with blind shots but are easy to figure out the line of play. There is ample room to miss if you don’t quite take the optimal direction. The par 3s are stout and play long and tough from the blue tees. The greens rolled true, while not fast yet in the early part of the season. The putting surfaces have lots of contours that make it very challenging to get the line correct. The course is pure golf in an interesting natural setting.
Thank you to Laurie Meredith and the staff at Black Mesa for a wonderful time!

First class resort and wonderful course, beautiful and challenging but fair. Every hole provides superb views of the desert mountains, but you'll also experience the perfectly manicured course, along with awesome vegetation and trees.

Beautiful course with wonderful overall shaping of what was once barren desert. Nice mix of holes that challenge every skill level. Course is not overdone with too much water, but just enough to have strategic value. Very nice use of several tree species and other plants that hide the fact you play in a desert environment.

very good shape. rough areas mowed down pretty low for easy recover. plenty of trees that make hitting the fairway a must. enough water hazards to challenge the best players. deep bunkers with interesting shapes had nice sand in them - easy to escape from. greens held very well and were moderately fast, some had slopes that you had to watch for, especially in front flag locations.
the down side was it played slow - 5 hours for a Tuesday middle of the day. nobody knows how to play ready golf. every par 3 hole had the 2 groups ahead of us waiting when we arrived at the tee. on the long par 3 #17, the next group was not waved up - then none of the 8 tee shots reached the green; about 4 of them didn't make it half way to the green. frustrating to watch...

this course needs a boost in its maintenance budget! this is a very interesting layout with lots of forced carries. it has a good balance of uphill and downhill holes. but the course is in bad shape. in spite of the above average rainfall in So Cal the last two months, there is virtually no grass in the fairways and rough is non-existent. A couple of my tee shots landed in the middle and rolled right off the fairway and into the hazard. Very aggravating! Quite a few sand traps have had the sand removed (to speed up play and and reduce difficulty I guess) but weren't sodded, which has left nothing but debris and clumps of crabgrass. I will not play there again anytime soon, or until they put down some fertilizer and make the grass grow.

the canyon/ranch nines make for a very fun and challenging round. nice balance of uphill/downhill, dogleg left and right holes. greens are a bit smaller than average without any severe breaks or tiers; very smooth and fast that roll beautiful, only a few greens have protective bunkers, which makes iron play a bit easier.
the vineyard nine is shorter and tight with more houses and environmentally sensitive areas that are in play on a number of holes. I would skip this nine if the others are available.

my son and I played the day after Thanksgiving. I expected the course to have a full tee sheet, but it was worse than that - not only did we tee off late but we joined a threesome. every group in front and behind us was also a fivesome. needless to say, it was a slow round, probably 5 hours.
except for the greens, the course was in poor shape - hacked up tees, thin fairways that were almost dirt in some places. with that many people playing, I would think the course generates a decent revenue. But it's obvious that LA County Dept of Parks does not put any money back into the course.