BigusDickus

Those range balls are a disgrace. Why do we have to pay the premium rate above the others to play this course when they can’t even give us clean range balls.
And what is it with that chipping area greens??? Why can’t they just transplant some of the real playing greens grass to the chipping area and then maintain it? So again why are we paying the extra green fee for this awful state?
Course was a bit thick. Fairways were soft and long, had no roll. Some areas of the rough were haphazardly cut so some were long, like 6 inches long right off the fairway and the mower had cut more deeper into the tree line so it was shorter there!!! What the heck.
Greens had been cut but not rolled so they were slippery quick but had vertical cut marks on many and were not smooth so the ball wobbled all over the place, and with the slippery speed it was just guess work what the heck it would do. Not really that fun to putt on, they just felt greasy and jumpy.
What is it with some of the bunkers. Like on 10, next to the green. It’s like a weird diagonal crater in there, and nobody rakes it, because it’s wicked crooked. I wish somebody would just work on the bunkers and relay them. There was one small bunker that had 3 rakes but a really large one at 12 only had 1!!! Ridiculous

Greens are superb. Smooth and fairly quick but not silly quick, just lovely to putt on, nice enough to be able to roll them true and make putts.
The course itself was a bit on the thick side today, fairways were a bit long, but that’s understandable after the downpours, it needed to dry out some more before cutting, but they were mostly all dried out quite nicely already, very well surprised at the way in which is had drained so well!
Given that it’s a Friday afternoon, and there was a decent steady 2 club wind most of the day, the Pace of Play was just over 5 and a quarter hours teeing off just after noon, but we’ll call that a fair time for the difficulty of the course and the overall windy conditions. But we did have 3 groups on every hole and we did a lot of standing around all day, which was very frustrating. I’m used to playing quickly.
Sterling Hills is back. Grass everywhere. Tee boxes perfect. I love the greens. Next month the place will be top notch. I hope they can keep the maintenance going.
Not too sure about the Pro Shop guy checking us in, he was gruff and none too pleased to talk to anybody, didn’t even look up from the computer and was not happy! We were a bit creeped out.
Hey for the price they give you a small bucket of range balls and a free non-alcoholic drinks ticket. Can’t say no to this place.

4 and a half hours at a course that plays 6300 from the back tees, and many not playing that! Unconscionable.
Didn’t see a “Marshal” until late in the round and so I have no idea what he was doing the whole day.
Yes the course is not “easy” due to the unnecessarily tricked out and sloping greens on a course that already had a few very sloped and elevated fairways, tees, and greens, but come on, it’s short! This POP is unacceptable when it’s this short.
We waited on every shot pretty much, especially the back nine.
The greens were half mush and half semi-firm, lots of moisture on the mushy greens, but all the greens were all receptive, so yet another thing that should have helped the pace since the balls held.
Yes there was some wicked wind today, more than 20mph consistently and some gusts blowing harder than that at times, but it’s not like the place has any rough, and with the greens holding and not very fast, I just don’t get why it plays so slow. During the week, no less!!
Dunno how anybody can be happy with that pace.

The world’s worst driving range also has the world’s worst range balls. See pics. I mean how can they give those to people. Balls covered in sand, unwashed. You have to wipe off every ball before you hit them, especially your driver and metalwoods, otherwise you will damage them. How can anybody call this customer service, at a place that tries to sell itself as a resort???? People from around the world come here and see the state of that. If you travelled to a far away destination and saw that range, you are going to run away. Especially this week, the Holiday week!!
And then the course…… my gawd, what is it with this place?
So many tee boxes need work, most were uncut today too, almost like rough on the tee.
And who did these pins on the greens??? Some of them were completely on side slopes and horrible humps!!! No wonder it was taking for ever to play. Having teed off at first twilight tee times, you would expect to be able to finish. But no. So many people were struggling with the course layout anyway, and then they have to deal with those crazy pins!!! On a weekday! Players were pinging back up and down and around the pin all day, we were so delayed we didn’t get to finish. We did our best, but we had to call it quits on 16.
Just really sad.

Dunno what happened. Came to a screeching halt on the back 9. Took 30 minutes longer to play the back. Why?
I wish the course starters would just tell every group to keep up with the group ahead, and if there’s a gap, catch up. People complain about pace of play, well, they also don’t know etiquette. If the course starter would just tell each and every group to put their carts to the back of the green, grab their clubs and then go play, they would get off the greens faster and get out the way, instead of leaving their carts and bags in front of the green making the group behind watch them come all the way back to retrieve their stuff when they get off the green, making the group behind them wait and stand there for an extra minutes or two. It’s deathly frustrating, and slows everybody down.
The courses need to do a lot more to educate the new players about etiquette. It’s wrecking the enjoyment of veteran players. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a muni or not, it’s golf!
So tired of dealing with the same problems over and over. The courses need to step up and rein people in.

Course was over watered and was muddy in spots and moist all around, the greens were the same, soft and receptive but overly so.
Dunno why the POP is so bad, waited on every shot on every hole, barely finished in the dark after a 4 hour 45 minute round at twilight.
Public golf is falling apart. Nobody seems to care, the game is being squeezed out into the rich man’s elitist game again.

Just under 5 hours starting just about twilight tee times. Dunno what the heck was causing the back up but it was pretty much 3 groups to every hole, sometimes 4 groups! On a Tuesday afternoon. Waited on every shot as you can imagine.
And the course is drying out, dying out. No rain so they don’t water? Don’t we have enough water in Cali now? So why isn’t it green? And it’s reclaimed water so we should have it overflowing.
Greens had been small holed the other day. They hadn’t been cut, they were bumpy and hairy, they were terrible.
What a waste of time. And I don’t mean that in a good way.

What is wrong with the range balls. Why are there no clean range balls??? Encino and Woodley are constantly replacing old ones with new ones, yet Rancho never has any clean balls, ever!!! So why do we have to pay the same price?
Nobody fixes pitch marks on the greens. Greens all inconsistent from soft to slightly firm from green to green. Right from the start, hole 1 green was so pocked marked it took me 5 minutes while everybody else putted to fix as many as I could, probably easily 50 of them. So sad.
The course is hodge podge. There are over-watered fairways on so many holes, right in the middle of the fairways that would kill any roll into the mud. These greenskeepers don’t care. They don’t put any eyes on anything to take care of the place.
I played Encino, Balboa, Wilson, Harding and Hansen over the past month, and Rancho is in the worst shape of them all. There are, sadly, dead, dry patches that should not exist like this, when compared to those other courses that are all mostly green and lush for the most part thanks to all the rain we had this year, this summer. Lots of thick green rough at those courses and the fairways are nice to hit from. There’s so much grass at those other courses that they can actually carve a shape to the fairways thanks to the thick rough and make it visually obvious where the fairway lines are on both sides. Not Rancho. No! It’s unconscionable that there are dried dead patches that have barely any grass. Left side of 4, 5, right side of 6 near the green around the bunker on the right side, yet the grass at the back of 6 is as thick like a jungle, and there’s a guy watering it!!! What about all the other areas that actually need the water??? Those are just some examples.
I don’t understand LA city: they spend money on the booze and bars, but they don’t put any effort into actually maintaining the golf course when it’s the golf that people come here for!!! And Rancho is supposed to be the “premier” of the courses they run and they charge you extra for that. But look at the state of it. Put some new balls out on the range at least!!! Make them clean the balls at least!!! Have the greenskeepers actually look at the course and distribute the water and work where they’re needed!!!
Such typical sadness of how things are run in LA.

All of the City courses are very wet and mushy and soft right now. There’s LOTS of grass, which is good, the heavy rains we had over the summer really helped to bring the grass back to how it’s supposed to be everywhere, and the cooler weather we’re having now is also keeping everything moist after they water them in the evenings, but because it’s not hot and dry but humid and cool-ish, the course doesn’t dry out as much. And so it’s very mushy and soft everywhere.
The rough is thick! It hasn’t been like this thick in probably 30 years. Which is good and bad. There’s grass, but now it’s affecting the pace of play. With so many new golfers once Covid who don’t know how to play, they’re all hacking it around all over the place and taking too long searching for balls and also taking too many shots.
Got stuck behind a few groups who were like that, who also didn’t seem to fix any of the hallmarks on the greens at all!!! As soft and mushy as the greens are, they are pock-marked, but since they’re all hackers and don’t have any etiquette, they just take their time on everything except fixing the course. It’s so sad and annoying.
POP was bad at 4 hours 30 on a weekday. We waited on every shot. Golf is becoming a joke.

Customers pay good money to play golf. Regardless of whether it’s a Muni or not, the course should be looked after. They have employees, don’t they? So why won’t they take care of the course. Rake the bunkers!!!! Just use the machine, and rake them!!! For crying out loud. What is wrong with America. What is wrong with this country. This city. LA is absolute trash. The Olympics shouldn’t come here.

I’m glad I played this day. The California Junior Golf League was playing a tournament. So, the course had actually been maintained a bit. Fairways were cut, the bunkers had been machine raked. Greens could’ve been better, they were a bit bumpy, but ok.
The fact that the bunkers were raked was nice. The Juniors were good players, and they raked them after their shots like everybody should. What’s SAD is this - the ADULTS who were playing after the tournament had passed through were NOT raking them!!! You’re an ADULT!!! What’s wrong with you???? Rake the bunkers!!! So sad to see clown immature adults with beer in hand who don’t even walk but ride in carts drive the cart everywhere and then not take care of the course. The Kids see this. Don’t you wonder why society is falling apart??? You’re an adult!!!!
Unfortunately the pace of play was a bit slow. Sure it was a Sunday, and the kids were playing a serious game. But it’s really shocking to see adults continue to have no etiquette and just wreck the place like always.

Sad. They’re removing a few fairway bunkers and making them all grass. Why? Because it probably saves them maintenance time and money, and they hope it helps with pace of play - none of which will happen!
So if there are less bunkers to be maintained, do we get a discount on the green fee? LOL.
Pace of play won’t improve because people just don’t have etiquette not do they care what anybody says at Munis that have no course marshals nor any real maintenance anyway!
Got stuck behind a 4some who were all hackers who all played from the back tee. None of them could hit the 150 yard Par 3, they were that bad. We even gave them a head start, they were half way down the 2nd fairway when we teed off but we caught up to them anyway and got held up by them most of the day.
Just a sad sight to see those bunkers get removed.
And does that mean the index and slope will get adjusted accordingly for becoming an easier golf course???? If not, then it makes no sense.

As long as they cut the greens and fairways and make them nice, and leave the rough alone, and then rake the bunkers, it will be the best it’s been in YEARS. It hasn’t had this much grass in 20 years

Teed off around 12:30pm.
Took 4 hours to play 14.
3 groups on every hole pretty much the whole time. My partners couldn’t deal with it any more so we walked off.
For a weekday, the POP was unforgivable.
It’s never like this with the spread out tee times so we had to assume that there were some really bad players who wouldn’t get out of the way.

Dude in the shop said it’s in great shape so I got excited. Turns out it wasn’t. Not quite. Practice greens are better than the course! Front 9 greens still showed recovering punch marks, they still looked like small ball marks that had bits of sand in them still. Back 9 they had cross-cut vert-cut them so there was a grid pattern to all of them. Very strange.
The bushes and tall grasses are really thick right now so you really have to keep it in play, otherwise you’ll definitely lose it in there.
All the lakes have water in them which was nice to see!
Range mats need replacing, pretty sad to see those old mats.
But disappointed that we were lied to about the conditions, so that’s the reason for my rating.
And the POP was bad. Just over 5 hours and it wasn’t even windy

One would have thought, that with the tremendous amount of rain that LA had over the past 3 months, that the course would be lush and in perfect shape with grass everywhere and no dead spots.
Wrong.
It’s unconscionable that they did not put in any work this whole time.
3 months of free water!!! And they didn’t work on any of the dead spots. There are still large pockets of dead spots with no grass, hard caked mud, even around the green fringes. For example, hole 6, the right side of the green is literally dead, massive indented fringe off the bunker’s edge. On the fairway at 5, they’ve tried to punch some holes and soften up the hard pan in the middle where they used to have a temporary green but it’s been years since, and they haven’t done anything to the ground so it’s almost bare.
And the usual bare spots all over the course. Why did they not just put in one day’s work at each spot over the last few months when there were few players on the cold wet days and add some peat and turf and try to grow those areas?
It’s so unconscionable. Just unbelievable.
And that 9the green! My gosh. It’s still rippled with waves. They could have stripped it completely and re-done it, it’s been horrible for a couple of decades! Decades!!! Can you believe???
Just so sad.

Brrrrr! It blew 30mph AND snowed some hail with it, but the course played surprisingly well. Yes there were some wetter spots but the course is fine. Greens were really good, except on a couple holes like 2, where they could have put the pin in a spot that doesn’t have all the indented damage from dead grass due to fungus.

Range balls are $14 for 70 balls!!! And they’re the extra soft-extra limited flight ones. That price is unconscionable. On terrible mats.
Then, it LOOKED like the course is GREEN - but if you looked carefully, the fringe around the practice putting green is PAINTED GREEN. Then when you look down the first fairway, it LOOKS nice - but once you get out there - it’s actually PAINTED. It barely has any grass. Then you get to the 2nd Hole - and you see how torn up, dry, patchy and horrible the rest of the fairways are.
They’re maintaining greens - like all these LA country courses - but why aren’t they watering the fairways and maintaining them??? It’s absolutely trashed, ripped to shreds, patches of dirt everywhere.
Tee boxes are all mostly not flat, they’re all lumpy and full of humps. Terrible.
It took 3 hours to play the front 9, and 2.5 hours to play the back.
Until some reviews tell us that the course is lush again, I will not play here. It’s the worst I’ve seen it. Doesn’t matter if the greens seem ok, it’s only like that because it’s winter and the cold weather helps to keep them firm.
Is this where public golf is? Is this what the golf industry claims it supports and promotes? It’s depressing. The game is becoming elitist and they’re ok with it. It’s a game for the rich, because the rich can afford to pay for the nice conditions and the rest of the people are being treated poorly, like this, and they don’t care. The days of “Play Golf America” when it needed people to play the game, is over, they no longer care what happens at the low income levels.

Really good coverage mostly, decent grass to hit off of. Yes there are some bare spots of course but overall most of the course has really good grass coverage now and is fun to play again.
The greens are a bit damaged, bumpy with weird patches, but the place is obviously putting the work in to roll them out to flatten and smooth as much as possible so they are quicker than most and are good enough to make putts.
Overall it’s in much better shape than most Munis, especially when compared to LA City.
However, I just don’t understand how they can charge so much for crappy range balls. It’s just not right.

Hilarious. Look at my pic. What is that? Bunker or trap. Sure it's a trap because it's just junk. How can they let it get like this? Seriously. And then the greens were soft, spongy and bumpy, just horrible.