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So I found a $20 deal for a round of golf here, and I am afraid to say that I overpaid for the round.
Let me preface my review with this statement, I have worked in the golf course maintenance field for the last 10 years. Of those 10 years, 9 of them have been in the transition zone. So I fully understand the challenges that this course and crew face. I currently work at a course that actually received more rain and hot weather than Patriots Glen did this year, based on some quick weather history research. Now back to my review.
I am not certain why the course is in the condition it is currently in. Basically, I can not determine if the condition is due to a lack of care, a lack of knowledge or a lack of money. For those that say “someone needs to spend some money to get the course back in shape,” no amount of money can fix this course if the people doing the work don’t care or don’t have the knowledge base to complete it properly.
There is a lot of dead grass, I mean ALOT, all over the course. The tee boxes are mostly dirt and algae is most cases, there are greens with less than 50% living grass and the fairways are more than 70% dead. Most of the dead grass on the fairways is due to the weather changing and the warm season weeds declining, and I would say the same for the tee boxes. The dead grass on the greens is another story completely. Most of the dead grass on the greens is due to lack of care. By lack of care I am saying that the grounds crew needed to hand water the hot spots on the greens when the weather was hot to prevent the grass from declining.
Overall, the course is amazingly still wet. There are spots on the course in fairways and rough the are absolutely mud. There are obviously drainage issues that need to be addressed, but there are also a lot of trees and under brush surrounding the holes that needs to be removed. Found this will increase air flow and allow the course to dry out faster, and help to prevent the grass from drowning. There are bunkers that have algae growing in the standing water because they have no working drains and no one has pumped them out.
All that could be from lack of knowledge, however, when the water in the ball washers smells like rotten stagnant swamp water, that is a lack of care.
Additionally, I played the course today, and can tell you first hand that the pin locations had not been changed in at least 3 days. Again a lack of care.
Simply put, for those that made it this far, I hate blowing up other courses, but something needs to be done with this course. It is a wonderful layout and rightfully challenging. But if no one cares about, knows how to or wants to pay to fix it, then it will go along the wayside like so many other challenging under managed courses, it will be forced to closed.