Douglas8700939

Played Saturday at 3:00 pm. The course was fun to play and was mostly in good condition. The afternoon tee sheet was pretty empty due to 100°+ temps, so the course was pretty wide open and our pace of play was excellent. But overall this course is overpriced, especially for locals who have plenty of other great options.

Here was the feedback I have to TPC in their survey about how they can do better:

1. Actually staff the bag drop stand. I pulled in and had three golf bags to unload. There was no one at the stand. I waited a minute or so and eventually just unloaded the bags and parked the car. Came back to the bags and no one had come up, so I carried all three bags back the the pro shop entrance area. Once we got keys to carts, we loaded the bags ourselves. Paiute costs half as much to play (as a resident), and they have multiple people working the bag drop, load clubs on carts and drive the carts to the staging area. Big miss for TPC!

2. Maybe have the halfway house open when you have golfers in the course so we don’t have to waste time driving all the way back to the clubhouse to spend our money on beverages? Or if you’re not going to keep it open during play, notify players so we have a chance to stock up before we start the round.

3. Pay attention to when golfers are coming into the clubhouse (in our case, it was at the turn). We walked in for drinks, served ourselves from the fridge, and stood around waiting for someone to come to the bar and ring us up. Then a guy came from somewhere in back, looked at us, and just stood at the other end of the restaurant talking to another staff member. I had to start walking towards him before he walked over to ring us up.

Side note: my guess is that each one of these pieces of feedback would be met with an attempted explanation that’s tied to the time of day we played (3:00 pm on a Saturday). I get that there weren’t a lot of players on the tee sheet. But if you’re going to be open for business and take our $175 pp (where’s the real love for locals, btw?), then I believe the level of service provided should be commensurate with the premium rates you charge. The lack of service could almost be excused if you dropped rates due to low demand (3:00 time in 100°+ heat), but that aspect of the experience was a tremendous let down considering what we paid to play. If that’s what I can expect at TPC, I’ll gladly continue to patronize courses like Paiute, Bears Best, and Rio Secco instead.

More times than not, I'm disappointed after playing Ruffled Feathers. This time was no different. On one hand, getting to play December golf in Chicago is great. But, Ruffled Feathers doesn't seem to know how to make Fall/Winter golf more palatable.

1. Most of the greens were littered with goose crap and leaves. It's like the staff hasn't even looked at the greens lately.

2. Leaves EVERYWHERE! I know it's fall, but if you're going to keep the course open this time of year, drag a leaf blower around once in a while.

3. Pace of play. This is always an issue at Ruffled Feathers, but this day was cart path only, and it took nearly 4.5 hours to play as a twosome. At least allow carts in the rough to help people get around quicker. Unfortunately, some REALLY long green-to-tee distances make walking a non-option.

4. Cost. Again, December golf is great, but courses need to align their rates with the experience this time of year. With everything above considered, RF should either lower the Fall/Winter rate or put some effort into making it a better experience if they're going to ask nearly $40.

The pro shop said they had just aerated the greens, but all the front side greens had a thick layer of sand on them. The crew were dragging the greens, but they had waaayyyy too much sand on the greens and couldn’t work it all in. The putting conditions were horrible that entire side.