chrisgent77

I was very pleased with this round that I booked through Troon Advantage through my home club. The only 2 negatives is the starter let a 5-some go out in front of my 3-some and the bunkers are worse than the last 2 municipal courses I have played (1 back in Dallas and the Encanto 9 here in downtown Phoenix). I am normally a good bunker player and these were pitiful in that they were compacted dirt more than they were sand bunkers.

Now that I have the negatives out of the way, let's talk about the positives. The greens were in excellent condition, and the tee boxes, fairways, and approach areas were all immaculate. Overall, given what I saw in reviews for other courses in the greater Phoenix area and their costs, this is a good value if you can access it via the Troon network at a discount over the published rates.

This is not a walking course, which is why the 5-some in front of us was so slow. Had they all been on carts, it would have moved faster, but as it was, we still finished in a little over 4 hours.

We were warned by the starter to watch out for snakes, but we didn't see any. We did see hundreds of rabbits and even a couple of coyotes as it approached dusk.

If you are one of those golf purists who says golf has to involve everyone wearing pants and a polo, Encanto is not for you. If you're looking to find a place to get in a quick 9 on a course close to downtown Phoenix with surprisingly great greens and fairways, then give Encanto a shot. I've played $24 rounds before....and never had anything in this good of condition.

I will say that I play almost all of my golf at a local 2-course private club, so I don't expect that level of facility from a public course with rates as low as this. However, with improved greens and bunkers, this course could be really solid. The bunkers are about a 75% / 15% / 10 % combo of weeds / mud / sand, respectively, and the greens, while not terribly slow, were bumpy from a lot of weed infestation. I think maybe 1 of the front 9 greens was at all smooth enough to say I had anything to do with making or missing a putt because of the bumpy weeds all over the rest of them.

Getting the greens relatively smooth and cleaning out the bunkers even a little bit w/ some weed-killer and some decent sand would make this a much nicer course.

There are clean ball washers on every hole, the cart paths (even though I walked, and just played the front 9) seemed to be in decent shape overall, and the tee boxes and most of the fairways were reasonable given the time of year and the amount of rain we've had to deal with in the DFW area.

The pace of play was great too, as I basically blasted my way through all 9 holes without a slowdown from anyone in front of me, and the foursome behind me was even playing fast enough to keep up with me, which is rare at our club. Unless I play multiple balls to essentially pretend I'm a twosome, even when I walk I normally wait on every shot if there's more than a twosome in front of me, even if they've each got their own carts.

Like I said, with the above 2 fixes (which I know aren't necessarily cheap or easy), this could be a really outstanding course and the layout / challenge presented would justify similar rates to Mansfield National and similar local public courses. However, in the current condition, it's barely providing equitable value for the fees it is charging with the greens like they are.

Let's face it, it's hard to grow a lot of grass in the high plains desert when it rains a lot, and in the middle of a historic drought, keeping a golf course alive and interesting has to be very hard. Thus, I have to give the staff at Rio MImbres a lot of credit. While this is no Dallas / Fort Worth area private club, it is certainly an interesting layout, and they for sure made the most of their space to create some fun holes. I happened to be playing very well right now, so I kind of tore this apart, even from the tips. I normally drive the ball around 290, so when a lot of the longer holes ended up downwind combined with the 4,400+ feet of altitude, I was blasting the ball to wedge distance on everything. Even on the par 5s, I was able to get on in 2 and 2-putt on all of them.

The only holes I struggled on were the Par 4 4th Hole, where I got very unlucky. I hit a massive bomb with a slight fade off the teem but the wind kept it from getting back into the fairway. If that clears, that was destined to be long enough to get almost all the way to the green caught a branch on the last tree on the last side of the fairway on a short par 4. A couple of bad wedge shots left me with a double bogey.

On the Par 5 10th, I ripped one out of bounds into the airport on another hole because I slipped on a sandy tee box. I made triple bogey on that hole because I compounded that by hitting my provisional up against the out of bounds fence because I was still on the bad tee box.

The only negative, other than the tee box above, is that there could be a little better marking of the back tee boxes and to which tees they go. Some of them are intermingled in a little bit and take a little thought to figure out which hole goes with which set of tees for a visiting player..

In the end, even though it was brutally hot out, I was happy to be able to get in a round of golf at the start of a work trip and this was an interesting find for a little town that's frankly out in the middle of nowhere. I will probably try to play it again once more before I leave town later this week, as I feel there's an under-par round for me from the red tees on this course.

We booked this as a hot deal and also used a coupon code to play for about $35 for 2 of us. For the money, this was a great little course. Overall, it was in nice shape.

Overall, it was a great day to play golf. The sun was out, the wind was a little lower than it normally is in April in DFW, and the humidity was not bad for spring.

As always, the staff at Grand Oaks was very good. The beverage cart came around at least 3 times, and we saw the marshal at least twice during play and once at the start. Once some slower players stopped the clubhouse after the 9th hole, the pace of play was much better after starting off pretty slow.

However, and this is a big issue for me, the course was not in as good of condition as it was the last time we played shortly after the heavy freeze in this area in February. The greens are either nothing but sparse grass covered in a layer of sand, or a bad mix of poa annua and sand with little of the proper green left. The fairways were decent for this time of year,, and most tee boxes had decent grass coverage (though some could use a little leveling to flatten them back out).

I'd really like to see the course get their greens to a level of several other local courses who had the same issues with bad weather this winter but don't have compressed sand for greens. Bumpy greens that roll as fast as those at the Masters are not a good combo unfortunately. Even so, we'll probably come back because Grand Oaks is normally a solid value play.

Unfortunately, I could only make it through 5 holes because I was not feeling well and the on-course restroom was closed, so I had to abandon the round. That said, there was a lengthy frost delay, which is to be expected in mid-January. The staff was really good and gave updates with a smile even though they couldn't do anything to speed things up.

However, a couple of issues did come up. There were already way too many golfers waiting to play, and rather than pushing golfers with a confirmed reservation out closer to their original tee times, the staff pushed out a foursome whose tee time through GolfNow did not go through properly, While, I felt for them as that's happened to me, it was usually when a course had some space. In this case, 2-3 foursomes left due to the frost delay, and instead of moving all of the rest of us up closer to our times, we had to wait for this other foursome that was 3 new golfers and 1 mediocre golfer to finish.

As I said above, the personal health issues make this rating a bit incomplete. However, there were some bright spots, albeit probably only because it was so cold. The greens <looked> shaggy, but rolled quick and smooth. I went 4 for 4 in putts, which was handy because as I was feeling terrible my swing was brutal! The other positive was the layout. I think that with some small improvements, such a little more cleanup of trash and weeds and overseeding the fairways and rough at least, this could be a really good course for the money.

Like a lot of courses in this age range that started as community country clubs when their neighborhoods were first built, Duck Creek is now a mixed daily fee / membership course. Their main clubhouse is well taken care of inside, with a nice looking bar and restaurant that was actually staffed at 8AM on a cold January morning. As mentioned above, the starter crew and pro shop staff were very friendly (maybe all too friendly given the above mentioned issue!).

Now for the bad. This course seemed to attract a TON of very new players, all trying to play at a prime time of the day on a holiday. Pace of play was awful, and made worse by the 3 players with whom I was matched having only 2 sets of clubs between them. The pair sharing the set of clubs were both very new players, and I probably could have walked and finished several minutes faster per hole than them feeling as terrible as I did. This seemed to be the norm in all the groups in front of and behind us. As mentioned above, the course could use some overseeding, and some tree trimming / weed removal. They were actually doing some tree trimming that morning, and the crew was trained well enough to stop their chain saws when groups were putting nearby.

Finally, it may not sound like much, but having an on-course restroom would have helped a ton given I was feeling terrible that day. They could at least have brought in a couple of portable toilets if their restroom was down long-term. I know my wife would not have made it through a round without needing a restroom, and maybe not my son either. They need to ensure that something is available to players, as I'd have likely been able to finish my round had there been an on-course option.

I'll start by saying that we may have been a little jaded showing up to Crooked Cat the day after playing at the Waldorf Astoria Golf Club.

However, Crooked Cat provided a great round at a reasonable price, for Florida golf. We had just played a course at home (DFW, TX) that was about as good and can often be played as a $35 hot deal through Golf Now, so I will say that even though this was a hot deal at $75, we still felt that we got our money's worth overall based on the going rates for highly rated courses in Orlando.

The pace of play was really good. We never really waited on any tee box, and we never felt that the group behind us was having to wait either. We got paired with a great couple of guys who'd driven down from a couple of hours north in FL to play the course, and while 1 of the 4 of us inevitably had to do some ball searching at 1 point or another per hole, we played in well under 4 hours total after a frost delay of about 50 minutes.

We have played a lot of courses at home in the DFW, TX area, and none match this course. The range has a great setup for irons, but not so much for working on your driver. This and the lack of availability for a post-round practice session on the range were the reason I knocked 1 star off the amenities.

As for the course itself, it was outstanding. We played from the 2nd tees from the back, and while it was a challenge, it was not out of line hard. The greens were firm and very smooth, so once we got the putting speeds down, they were fair. The service staff was great, and we saw the beverage cart at least 4 times in a very fast 18 hole round that we finished in 3:35.

The greens at Old Brickyard are really good. As in as good as you would expect paying $40 to play on a weekend morning. However, the tee boxes were in some cases almost completely devoid of grass, and there were too many places where the players in front of us looked like they were safely gone and out of reach only to reappear. There are just too many blind spots, and without something like a GPS unit on the cart or something else to tell you when it's safe to hit, you just end up with the 200 yard hitters being mad at you all day when you think they're gone and you and your 15 year old son both drive it past where they were waiting to hit their 3rd shots because of going into the trees and taking way longer than the allowed 3 minutes to look for their balls.

That all said, if the rate was something like $30 on a weekend, I would likely have had little concern about the pace of play or lack of technology. However, at $40+ (with tax / fees), this was an overpriced round.

I checked in about 40 minutes early for our tee time. As we were called to the tee, a single who'd been on the back 9 jumped in front of us, and he was behind a very slow pair who was behind an even slower foursome. I do not understand why golfers who can't break 100 insist on playing from the 2nd farthest tees, as Grand Oaks can be a real challenge for single handicaps when it's this wet, much less 30 handicappers. At any rate, there were no signs anywhere (clubhouse, on course, etc.) that said cart path only, and when I checked out a cart, the pro shop did not say anything to me or the 3rd person who was assigned to our group. However, that did not stop a grumpy staff member from coming by twice and yelling at us to get back on the cart path. We could have understood it being cart path only on a couple of holes due to the rain, but we weren't told at the pro shop and there are no signs, so maybe tone down the grumpy marshal a bit.

In the end, it was a good round for both my son and I and was for sure better than 4 hours at the office. We will play here again at some point when it fits the schedule.

We arrived about 45 minutes early, and the course was wide open. We went ahead and teed off and were done in under 3 hours since we were basically alone on the course. We probably could have used that warmup to get loose, but the course was in solid shape. The greens were a little slow, but I adapted fine and didn't have any 3 putts despite the wind making it hard to get close to the pins. The tees were all the way on the back, so the golds were almost to the blacks, and on a couple of the holes, I found it hard to find a spot to stand on level ground. On 11, I almost fell as my right foot was in a huge ant mound that was covered by grass too tall for a tee box. However, other than the tee placements, the course was in good shape, especially given the heavy rains we'd had over the weekend after a long period of no rain.

The course was in great condition, but it is definitely a tough layout, particularly for someone who has not played it a lot. It was possibly the nicest course we have played this summer in terms of the quality of the cart, greens, fairways, etc. overall. I will say that the GPS-equipped carts are almost more annoying than they are valuable, but I understand why some people who do not use a rangefinder / GPS app combo might prefer them.

My 2 main reasons for not rating this a 5 overall are this:

1. The range balls are not included at what is a fairly expensive base priced round. We got this as a "hot deal" at $37, and at normal rates, it's closer to $50. Other courses in the area (Southern Oaks for one) that are in this price range include range balls. Now, Tierra Verde is a nicer overall course, but still, this seems to be something that should be included.

2. The practice greens (putting and chipping) were both closed. Given how fast the greens are, we definitely would have played better had we been able to spend time learning the greens speed and receptivity to wedge shots.

The course was in good shape for a Texas course in the middle of summer. The greens were smooth and the fairways were well-maintained. However, there were multiple groups of 20+ handicap golfers being allowed to tee off from the tips, and that slowed the rest of the course down. The one thing lacking at Prairie Lakes is a marshal or starter, and if there was one, he / she could see these duffers teeing off and barely clearing the front tees and tell them that they needed to move up to the 2nd set of tees at worst.

The pace of play was worse this round than in previous rounds we've played at Grand Oaks. The course is in nice condition in most areas, and the greens were best I've seen them.

I played 2 rounds at my Dad's country club in Illinois in May and Southern Oaks was in such great shape I would place it above a very nice private club. They provide range balls and ice for coolers and we finished in under 3 hours and 30 minutes. That's was a good thing because it was super hot today. The greens were in good shape and my only complaint there was they did not water in the fertilizer enough onn a couple of holes. If the beverage cart had come through more often, it would have been better, but overall, it was a great round.

I was supposed to tee off at 1:45PM, but when the rest of the group (3 people I did not know playing together) was late, I was able to start on my own. After the 6th hole, a very nice group of 3 invited me to join their group. We finished our round in under 3 hours from whbe I teed off! The course is in much better shape than when we played it back in March, and the beverage cart driver and marshal both did a great job. I saw both at least 5 times, and that was in a very fast round.

The wind was blowing at 20-30 MPH this day, but even with that, the pace of play was good and the course was in good condition overall. A couple of greens need significant work (especially the TPC Sawgrass replica) to fill in patches of bare sand, and there's too much Poa annua in a few of the other greens. However, we'd definitely come back and play here again at this price. I would not pay full weekend prices to play with the conditions of these greens though.

I get that COVID-19 has made people walk that probably have not done so in 20 years, but the pace of play was miserable on this occasion. Furthermore, instead of each person in front of us walking to their own balls and playing them, they not only played "honors" golf, but helped each other look for their frequent lost balls. Twice, I thought they had gone around a corner or were far enough in the fairway to be out of range (i.e. over a hill), but they came out of the woods after I hit and were mad at me as if I should have known they didn't have any idea how to walk a golf course.

The last time before this that my HS aged son and I played, we walked 18 in around 3:15. This round took 4:30, and for no real reason as there was not a group in front of the guys in front of us, who made no effort to let us play through.

We've played Prairie Lakes as often as anywhere this fall / winter. For a course in this value range, it's a nice setup with 3 9-hole sections that are rotated based on the day / time of your tee time. Each of the 9-hole courses (Red, White, and Blue) have their own layouts / challenges. Red is the most open with the least amount of trees and water. White has the most water, followed by Blue. Blue has by far the most trees.

With a little TLC and some tweaks to how the course schedules groups, this place would be not only a value leader, but a stellar facility. Too often they allow players in groups of 5 and / or walkers during the busiest times of the day. If those walkers were all competitive high school golfers, it wouldn't be bad, but a recreational golfer whose handicap is over 25 should not be allowed to walk during a Saturday or Sunday prime-time round.