jaknee

too many courses in much better shape close to home.
staff was friendly. course is average at best. had lost almost 2 greens on the back nine. too many twosomes. need to pair people up! pace of play was terrible on back nine.
golf now needs to come up with something to get these courses to tell you ahead of time if they are cart path only!
if i pay to ride, that means TO MY BALL!
riding down the cart path and walking 100 yards with 3 clubs every shot isnt my idea of riding
if not, refund me the cart fee and ill walk!
its not fun to pay to ride and walk the entire course.

first, i live within 45 min of the course.
second, i get the same amount of rain.
third, i mowed my yard.
finally....this course is nothing but rolling hillls and blind shot golf. it was unbelievably wet on a course with this kind of terrain. the drainage must be nonexistent. i played in the fairway with grass, not thick, 5” tall. its hard to believe they hadn’t mowed in over a week. $31 on a hot deal with cart path only rule and fairway rough was not a good combination for me to play it again any time soon.

Beautiful rolling fairways, Smooth undulating greens.
Well kept and manicured. Considering the amount of rainfall that middle tennessee has gotten this year, i was astounded to see such a course in that shape. It had rained, of course, the week prior to our play. This had really only effected the bunkers. Incredible drainage! Great job to the builders.
AND TO OUR BIGGEST SURPRISE!!!!!!!!!
NOBODY WAS THERE!!!!!!!!
saturday, sunny and 55 degrees, perfect december weather, great price to play and
NOBODY WAS THERE!!!!!!!
Its 30 min from cookeville, tn
its 45 min from crossville and fairfield glades
( as good as any of those courses )
its an hour from nashville And
NOBODY WAS THERE!!!!!!!
driving range was empty!
They have condos, A Lake, Ducks and even though i didnt see any, im sure there’s deer.
Clean and Friendly Everything and
NOBODY WAS THERE!!!!!

IT Was So Sad! So Sad.

I guess between non caring retirees and a reclusive video gaming, social media infested younger generation, the people from the late 70’s, 80’s and 90’s are the last to appreciate and enjoy this great track in Sparta, Tn

Did i mention the greens were firm and ball placement crucial?

went thru Golfnow to book. always a plus.

First, Justin at the counter was super nice and helpful. i had never been there before and he gave me a rundown of the course that was surprisingly accurate. i felt right at home from the start.
Second
the course runs beside the river and flows up and over the side of a large hill. it is mostly cut thru the hills, but the holes at the river were unique and fun.
this course was a breath of fresh air compared to the other courses in east tennessee that are straight forward and ordinary. depending on your skill level, you can decide to tee of over water or play forward and not take the chance. par 3’s were accessible, but gaurded by banks or grass bunkers and not always with your boring bunker. trees lined most fairways with trouble on one side and bail outs (banks) on the other. there was this one par 4, 16 i think, that you tee’d off from the top of a hill. you could see out towards the river and deer crossed the fairway as we started to tee off (incredible view of most of the golf course).
there was a great grill at the club house.
clubs, hats golf balls and your usual clubhouse amenities were available.
Finally,
this was no course to walk, but a must play if your in east tennessee. i was very impressed. every hole offered something different.
i think justin’s last name is roundtree, if you call or go, give him a shout.

for such a nice course,
its sad that my round took 5 hrs and 45 min. to play. if you figure in the time it took to travel to and from the golf course, it was a 7 hour day of golf.
i think number 14 is a fairly long par 5. when we pulled up in the cart; there were 2 groups waiting to tee off, 1 group out in the fairway and 1 group chipping to the green. counting us, thats 5 groups on 1 hole! it was brutal all day. no rangers to help speed up play. from what we could tell, there was a counter guy, a girl in the concession area and that was it! we did notice a truck at the maintenance shed so maybe that person was in there asleep.
its a nice course and those 2 employees were super friendly.
But the pace of play was brutal.
cant say it enough.
I will mention that it was Cart-Path -Only.
thats just unacceptable.
they had - had rain, but no more than the couse we
played the day before, 15 min away. the other course was 90deg rule.
if its wet enough for cart path only, they should offer everyone a raincheck if they so desire, before they start the round, instead of walking a 6500 yard course in damp grass.
in my opinion it should have been 90 deg, but i dont run the course.
if i ever go back, ill call before i leave the house and check on the cart rule for the day.

yours truly,
wasted saturday

1st. all employees were very nice! and i read the reviews which after playing are very misleading!
2nd. course looked great from the road!
and here we go....
3rd.......and so on
im about a 10 handicap and so is my son.
i thought i could hit out of any rough, but i was wrong!
the fairways ranged from 15 yds wide to 30yds. ( except for maybe 2 or 3 ).
needless to say, i was in the rough quite a bit. the only description of this rough is ...MOWED TANGLED VINES!!
ive played us open rough and it has nothing on this stuff...
par 3's are surrounded by this stuff so make sure you hit the green.
it was as though they learned how to mow a briar thicket (The Whole Course)
to perfection.
this was rough you find if you hit one 75 yds right into a cow field and u jumped a fence, determined to find and hack your ball back in play!!!
im sorry i didnt take a picture of it but ive played some 200 plus courses and i was speechless.
in almost every case, if you were in the rough your ball was virtually undetectable. so if u decide to try this course, you better watch the ball Carefully!
after hole 3 the course becomes a Maze and you start out lost!
hole number 8 tees are right beside number 3 green, and since the concrete hole markers (telling you hole number and distance) are down at the white tees and we played the back tees, we played it next by mistake. ( tees...back to forward colors...Orange, blue, white, and so on)
we had to ask someone where hole 4 was and after a 500+ yard in the opposite direction treck and 2 streets later we found it.
after that, the front nine's cart trails and hole designs made it ok to make it to the turn.
NOW for the real crazy part!
the back nines rough is more prevalent and only about 10% of the back nine has cart trails.
there are 3 par 3's on the back
and a 230 yard par 4 (from the back tees)
back tees which included the blue and white tee markers was a
turf mat?!?!
#10 is 300yds of fairway and 250+ yads to the green of the twisted vine rough.
im not sure what hole it was...#14 i think...the first 175 yds is the vine rough and then a big gully that leads back up to the green. the gully is the fairway (or was fairway) its now dirt with a few splotches of normal grass here and there.

Final note:

Until the rough is changed, holes marked better and the back nine in better condition don't waste your time.
it looks great
plays unbelievably bad
and the people are nice.

For this review a pro con list should do the most justice.
Pros:
Course was in excellent condition
Pace of play was fine
Other golfers were willing to let you play through
Most of the holes have a logical layout
Cons:
Staff, while friendly was playing favorites.
Some of the cups were not what I would call correctly inserted although this could be a problem with people pulling the pins to hard.
No concession carts rolling around on a 90+ degree day

In summary the course was worth the price, if I could have not been told I would be in a foursome then have the other three remove me for another man that hadn't made a tee time 10min before we were to tee off I would have loved it. Currently though I'm a bit put off and will probably hold off on playing or referring anyone for a while.

golf has become way to expensive to play. with jobs going to china and mexico, even the pga can see americans cant afford to support the courses or the pga so there going overseas too. very sad.
lake tansi is an excellent course thats well taken care of.
it rained off and on all day, but we still had a great time. greens were fast even in the rain. there were probubly a total of 40 or so people on the courae. the course was cleared due to lightning so i could see everyone in the pro-shop and restaurant.
i even heard the words golf now several times when they talked about possible rain-checks.
NOTE: course said " if they paid at the course they got rain checks, if we paid golf now via internet it was between golf now and us golfers.". hadnt ran into that yet.
fairways were nice, bunkers raked and greens were running tru.
flags were colored for placement on the green. course was marked well for distance even with a helpfull waterproof booklet on each cart that explained tree, bunker and water distances from tee to green.
NOTE: dont expect your gps caddie to work as Lake Tansi was not available on mine so i had to rely on there distances (which were so-so).
im use to gps now.
if you dont mind $50 bucks for a round of golf then you will love this course.
looks like fewer and fewer people can afford that. i cant aggree more. from the number of players and lack of play, it should be easy to keep the course looking good if you can stay in business.
NOW. Golf now is great! it has allowed me to play more often and visit courses like this (an hour and a half away from my home). from what i overheard, the course should be thanking golfnow. probubly wouldnt have been 10 people there otherwise.
you should really like the course.
i will definitely recommend it.

from the white tee its fun, from the blue tee its a challenge.
great value thru golf now.
staff, as always, superb!
greens are in good form
slow, but nice
fairways need plenty of hydro seed.
playable though

It's been 10 years since I played baneberry. I forgot why we always loved that course. Unbelievably fun and challenging layout. White tees or blue tees are that way! If it were not over an hour away, I'd play it all the time. It's part of a resort/subdivision which each fairway is lined with (what is now) older homes and condos. Surprisingly the homes are not 10 yards from the fairway like most subdivision courses are. Not that an offline shot can't hit a house, but a 15 yard fade or draw should pose little chance of breaking a window. Fairways were well maintained. Bunkers were raked and maintained. There were several water holes which didn't really come into play unless your game was really suffering.
The mountains in the background give the course an unbelievable scenic accent. On a few of the holes you noticed the lake/river in the background that Was pretty. Ducks were prevalent on the course. 6 flew in over us as we approached the number 4 green and landed in the huge pond guarding number nine green.

drawbacks:

They are having problems with about 60 percent of the greens. Not the whole green on any given hole, but large spots. They better get on top of it or 2 months from now the reviews will not be so pleasant. It seemed as though only 2 were working the whole course and clubhouse. The guy behind the counter was very nice. Snack bar person left due to an emergency before we finished 9. The guy (not sure of his title) behind counter was able to round us up a couple of hot dogs, and we were off to the back nine. Great guy, I wonder if he had to wash all those carts by himself?

The course has age on it now and I hope they don't neglect it.

The short: If I paid regular price i would give it a 6.5/10
Since I used golf now hot deals. 9/10

You should play it!

Providing you take advantage of golf now hot deals ONLY, this is a super fun test of golf! for any price over $25, I would never consider it again. Staff is unconcerned, preoccupied and not customer friendly. Greens keeper takes pride in the greens. He is probably why it gets the play that it gets. As long as golf now keeps it economical, ill play it again.

On the first tee, I noticed the grass so-so mowed. Brownish green in color, but I thought that its just spring time. Wait, its river islands, one of the most expensive around here. Its always green and plush. NOT NOW!!. I started my round joining 2 other gentleman from sevierville.

I was shocked, as was the other 2 gentleman, when I arrived at the green! The green was mostly black. No grass! Looked like a green with the worst case of measles I'd ever seen. Unbelievable! I, thank the lord, had purchased my round thru golfnow. The other 2 had played full price.

#2 was by far the best green cosmetically, but the worst green to hit into since its maybe 10 yards deep.

All greens were awful!

The sand traps were just as bad, hadn't been raked in what looked like weeks. You know a sand trap hasn't been taken care of if it too is black, hard as a brick, and has rocks.

Tee boxes in a lot of cases were uneven.

The rough was us open style. Some places had mowing clippings making it impossible to locate a ball.

I was 20 yards off #6 green, chipping up on dirt. If I could add a picture?..?.you wouldn't believe it.

Never saw a ranger....pace of play was brutal....started my round at 1.30 - finished at 6.30

Again, if u pay 25 dollars to play, you will want a refund.

Total goat ranch!

It used to be awesome,