Scruffyduck89

I used to love this course. It’s always been a tight course with challenging angles but what happened to it? The course layout is the same but absolutely none of the bunkers were tilled. Straight mud bunkers. Nothing but bladed balls coming out of there. Also, no sign of a ranger to monitor place play. Sure did have multiple older guys in a cart with the beverage girl though. Not sure what their purpose was but it wasn’t to monitor pace of play. Finally golf etiquette is non-existent here anymore. Guys yelling at the club house while people tee off and multiple people driving into our fairway while we tee off with no sense of courtesy. I get having fun at the clubhouse before and after your round but just yelling at each when a normal voice would do, with no respect for other players, is new here. I hope not all the focus went into simulator golf. The one saving grace is the staff is super nice.

Picked up a twilight tee time that should have been able to finish 18 with no issue, and my group plays fairly quickly, however we got held up by the group ahead that felt like they had all day to finish their round. We were constantly waiting to play off the tee and waiting for them to get off the green while they took their time to line up 1 foot puts. We were already 12 minutes behind pace before the turn, but no sign of the ranger telling them to pick up pace. On top of that they sent out 2 pairs behind us. No thought of possibly having those 2 groups form a 4 some. So we tried to be considerate and let them play through but once we let them play through they decided to now take their time and play slower causing us to basically play the last 3 holes practically darkness. I used to love playing here. But with no one regulating pace of play and groupings, not to mention placing the pins on downhill lies, might be better off playing Countryside down the street.

Last time I played here, the only issue I had was that the grass clippings were not blown off of the grass in the rough, causing us to lose balls that didn’t go OB. This time around everything was GREAT! Everything was groomed nicely. Fun bunch of par 3s on this course. Going to play this course a least a handful more times this year.

Some of the greens are positioned close to oncoming fairways. Please make sure guests call out “fore” on wayward shots. First time I’ve seen the course ranger tell guys that they needed to stop looking for their ball and play the drop, so that was very much welcomed and appreciated. Overall good course, and will play there again.

I played as a single player getting paired with 3 other people. One was somebody that was a god player the other two were older women. Interestingly we were given a slow play warning from the ranger but didn’t not see why. The group in front was play a scramble format as well as the group behind us. So they were playing the best ball from their groups. Of course this would make them play faster. That shouldn’t dictate how we played. Additionally we were well within pace. If they want players to play at a specific pace then that should have been stated at the beginning of the round. Course was in good condition but the greens were bumpy. Also a bunch of holes that cross too close cause people to hit into other players constantly.

The course has seen it’s better days, and its been up for sale for at least a couple years now. It would still be a great course if it were taken care of but sadly that’s not the case. Trees on 7 might tip over at anytime due to beavers eating them up. All the bunkers have rocks in them (not pebbles, ROCKS), no one fixing their divots or pitch marks, even saw a few divots on the greens 3 ft from the hole. Yes divots. Pace of play was bad last time I went, with the group in front of us quitting saying there’s no way they could play at that pace. Finally paper printed scorecards. We get it, gotta try and reduce overhead costs somewhere but charging over $50 with everything previously listed is a tough sell. No worries, they got my money last weekend but never again.

I stopped playing Bittersweet a couple years ago because the course has seen better days. I thought I would give it another try because I heard they were under different management. Unfortunately, I did not see a difference in the condition this time around. The tee boxes are uneven and chewed up. Maybe I should expect that from a public course but these were pretty bad. The fairways were ok and that probably because the course plays super tight and not many people can hit the narrow fairways. The greens were extremely patchy and bouncy. I’m pretty sure they haven rolled their greens for a couple days before I got there. The one thing that really bothered me more than anything is that the grass clippings were just left there so if you hit your ball in the rough and clearly see where it ended up you can still lose under a bunch of grass clippings left on the course. This course could be really awesome with just a little more care but that was not the case when I played it. Just a final note on something I found interesting. I’m pretty sure the range balls that I was hitting were from when they opened the golf course 30+ years ago (see photo).

Everything on this course was great except the pace of play needed better enforcement. The group in front of ours was so inconsiderate that we lost enough daylight to finish the round, and there was at least 2 more groups behind us. The group in front would take their sweet time and didn’t have any consideration for the groups behind them. The drink cart should have at least not given them service until they got back on pace. Instead the cart girl served them 2 rounds of shots while 2 groups behind them waited on the same tee. I would play here again but they advertise a fast pace of play here but don’t enforce it.