ace5002

I will start with a positive, the greens were in good shape as well as the fairways. The tee boxes however, were in poor shape. In many cases it was flat dirt to hit off off, as well as uneven surfaces.

What was really egregious was that my friend and I were playing and the signs directing cart traffic pointed both directions going outside of the green area. As we drove to the right of the green, a large dude on a lawn mower shouted very loudly that we needed to follow the cart signs. We shouted back over the sound of his running lawn mower that they point both ways, to which he yelled even louder this time to follow the signs. We again said the signs point both ways so he could fix them, and he just yelled so belligerently at the top of his lungs to follow the signs. We just shook our heads and drove off.

Last, the pace of play is not enforced. To the point the young man in the club house asked us how slow it was going for us out there, as he knew when we teed off. This is a problem in all of St. Louis, so certainly not exclusive to Tamarack, but rangers really need to enforce pace.

Far Oaks is a nice course in pretty good shape except for the slow greens and bunker reconstruction. The pace of play was around 5 hours, which is very high but unfortunately every course in the St. Louis area is that way as no one wants to enforce pace.

The thing that got me, is while this course is fairly nice, it’s not $83 green fee nice. At that price one would expect perfect condition, pace, and generally just a higher tier course with more robust design and ameninities.

The staff was very nice.

This course does not enforce their rules. They allowed a group of 5 to play an entire round on a busy Saturday never splitting them up despite multiple calls from several different groups.

They also let a walking single in ahead of several groups at the turn and when the marshals were approached they said they would take care of it, but never approached. This left our group in a position of confrontation as opposed to doing their job and having the interaction.

The course is in bad shape but I will say that’s mostly due to the flooding in the area, so that’s not really under their control.

The new owners are really doing a good job getting the course and facilities back up to speed. Nice course and better and better shape each time I play it.