elvhus

My wife and I went to Homestead today anticipating a fun round for our anniversary celebration. Reservations were very easy and the price was exceptionally good. That was a little worrisome.
We teed off from hole #1 ahead of our scheduled time. Unfortunately my drive rolled through a brown fairway into a "sand" trap which was full of dirt, dust, stones and weeds, no trace of sand. Fortunately, I chipped on to a decent, well tended green to save par.
The second hole forward tee box was un-watered and difficult to sink the tee.
Most of the rest of the course was is far worse shape than I remembered from previous yearly outings. Many of the greens were partially diseased. On 17, my ball actually plugged on a saturated fairway.
Neither of the two drinking fountains worked on an 85° day.
After our round we decided to eat at the excellent Cajun Bistro at Shuksan and talked to a woman who lives at Homestead but drives to Shuksan to play due to the current conditions at Homestead.
Hopefully the owners will invest time and funds to bring the course, with a great layout, back to playable shape.

The bones of a great golf course are still there, although if you didn't see it in the glory days, you would not believe it once was a beautiful, well maintained, challenging and fun course.
First let me say the staff was great, very attentive and accommodating on a busy Thursday. The price was excellent, $41 including cart.
The golf course looks (and is) in disappointingly bad shape. The grounds around the clubhouse, tee boxes, driving range etc are completely overgrown and uninviting.
The fairways are extremely uneven, leading to unfair bounces and bumpy cart rides.
The greens are very well maintained, though many traps are overgrown with grass and weeds (particularly the 9th and 12th holes).
Hopefully more money will be invested in bringing the course back. I would have been happy to pay more for a better maintained track.

We made a tee time for late morning at a give-away price of $16 walking, $28 with a cart. The drive into the course was pretty against a backdrop of nice homes and well kept streets. The clubhouse is very nice and the staff pleasant.

We checked in for our 18 holes and bought a bucket of balls and proceeded to an extremely neglected, irons-only, driving range to warm up.

I tee'd off the first hole, down the middle of the fairway but could not find my ball in the long grass. The 1st fairway is dry and I saw the ball bounce so I don't think it plugged. I was pleasantly surprised by excellent greens.

After losing 3 balls in the next 8 holes and holding up the group behind us while searching the fairway, we decided not to play the back nine under the current course conditions. Tall grass in the fairways, clumps of grass clippings in even taller grass just off the fairway.

The homes around the course are beautiful with well kept yards. The greens are perfect. It's too bad the tee boxes, fairways and grounds are in such bad shape.