stonerj1

Good course overall. They have really focused on the tees, fairways and greens. The rest of the course was brown and hard pan. Pin placements were tough, some impossible to get close to without the ball rolling off the green. Only downside is that they don't mow the collar down around the green so if your ball rests against it it's very hard to take a backswing with the putter.

Throughout the year I've been reading a lot of negative reviews about this course. I played there yesterday, I showed up an hour late because of car trouble and they honored my tee time anyway which I really appreciated since it's a 40 minute drive. This kind of courtesy goes a long way for me. I did however try calling several times to let them know what was going on but no one answered and the voicemail was not set up,I would recommend at least setting up the voicemail. I remember playing this course when it had only been open for a year and it was tough! Having a links style course in this area is so different from all the other courses in the area it will really put your game to task. i went to the course with low expectations for the tee boxes, sand traps and the greens as I had read about them beforehand. The tee boxes and the fairways were barren in some areas but I just picked and replaced as there were plenty of areas where you could place your ball. The sand traps haven't been worked yet so they have grass in them, I hit in one so I just played it like ground under repair and dropped no closer to the hole. The greens were awesome, it really looks like they have placed a lot of their attention on them late this year. They were a little slow but they were true. I made an 18 foot birdie putt on 16 that rolled right on the line I hit, no bumps it anything. This is a huge course so I can't imagine the effort it would take to keep up with it. I only saw one person mowing so they may need more personnel to get this course to shine again. Honestly, if they get the tee boxes and fairways under control with more grass I wouldn't care if they just convert the sand traps to great traps.

The course is in great shape. I couldn't beat the price, especially considering I've paid way more for courses with less character and shape. If you hit your drives around 265 then you might not have a lot of holes that you can hit driver on or maybe shouldn't would be the correct term. Play from the blues would have been more challenging but probably would have had less swing thoughts. It was really hard to determine the break in the greens with all the sand on them. I'm not accustomed to this so I missed a ton of putts I normally make. Don't let this fool you, the greens were still very fast so leaving the ball below the hole was very important and with the sand don't count on your ball spinning much. We had some rude golfers in front and behind us, assume they were locals, and it would have been nice if a marshal was around to maintain pace of play. Overall, the course was in great shape, hitting out of the bunkers was fun as you could splash out and some of holes could only be described as picturesque.

I wish it had a couple more par 5's but those long par 4's are sure challenging! The greens are very fast and sloping. Overall, it's a fun course to play.