sthroner

Course is undergoing major trap realignment and repair. Else the course is in very good shape.

I've played this course many, many times. The last three or four times I realized that I don't really enjoy it. Yes. It is tough, but at my age, I don't want tough anymore, I want, more or less, level lies and a hope in holy heck that I can stop an approach shot somewhere near the hole. It's more work than play. No matter where you hit the ball, including right down the middle, you have an uneven lie. No more of that. I will play Bayonet from now on. Today was my last round at Black Horse.
The greens are cut so short that you are essentially putting on clay mud. Course conditions are ratty and dried out. The fairways are cut so tight that you need perfect contact. How many of us these days want to play off hardpan because we are perfect ball strikers?

The greens have always been cartoonish out there but now that they are rolling at 10-plus on the Stimp meter, you really could not get a ball to stop on the green. While I like slick greens, they need to be able to receive approach shots. Everything is just SO dried out. My best guess is that they do not have enough money to keep the water on.

Just an overall lousy experience. Black Horse has lost its mojo.

This is a wide open driving course. If you drive well, then this is a course where you can score below your index. Greens were good but very wet. The restaurant had the grumpiest employee I have come across anywhere in a long, long, time. My friend and I met to have breakfast before the round . I ordered French toast, he ordered a burrito. We were told there was no syrup and no salsa. Huh? This is Sunday morning!

My last review was fairly negative. The greens were awful, the fairways skimpy, the bunkers in need of sand.

Well, someone has been working hard and spending some money. The greens have healed and are rolling well. The fairways have thickened up. The sand traps are excellent.

I like this track but it went in the dumper for about a year. Now I would not hesitate to play it.

YAY for the Laguna Seca owners and management.

Who doesn't like to play the second (ocean) nine at Pacific Grove? I am always a little excited to book that course. In fact, I am playing there twice this week. The views are on par with some of the best that Spanish Bay and Spyglass have to offer...and at a fraction of the price. Plus the layout is just good fun. For these reasons, I rate it a four.
However, the greens were downright poor. Worst of all the courses I play in the Monterey Bay area. They are receptive and moderately paced, but they are diseased, lumpy, and untrue. It appears they do not roll the greens and that they are losing the battle with whatever is attacking or invading the grass on their greens. Else the course (fairways, bunkers, rough, and tees) was in good shape and was a kick to play...especially in those brisk winds. On many of the exposed holes, keeping the ball in play off the tee was a real challenge.
They need to fix the ends of the paved cart paths. Exiting the cart paths onto the fairway usually meant a string of potholes and a spine-jarring experience. This problem can and should be fixed.

I enjoy the course but you folks need to get working a bid harder on the conditions out there. Your greenskeeper should call in some expert advice. . Good luck.

Half of Seascape's greens are a joke: way, way too much slope. With the pin positions they had yesterday, our threesome repeatedly had problems getting up and down, and three putted with regularity. These are reasonably good players/putters.

Hmmmm.

Do you think maybe the green slope, speed, and pin positioning had something to do with the fact that we played the first nine holes in 2 hours and 45 minutes. Two of my players quit at the turn. I stayed and played two more holes, then I quit as well.

Seascape will NEVER be a favorite course of mine without reshaping half of their greens. It's a shame too, because the course is in very good shape and the greens are rolling quite well. Sisyphus would have had a great time out there yesterday.

The owners and members of Seascape do not have the will to fix a forty year old problem and that is why they don't get the play that course deserves. Maybe that is why they don't fix it.

Play isn't slow because the number of rounds they put out, it is slow because the greens take so long to putt. I am just saying. Wake up, American Golf. You need to spend some money on your property.

to design a course for the average player. If you can't break 80 on your home course, you are looking at shooting in the 90s here.. Its kind of a running joke - "How hard can I make this course? Let's see, I can bury an elephant on this green, two zebras under that one, take away all the safe outs where greens are next to water or barancas. Force people to layup on par fours. Require a 190 yard uphill tee shot to a steep, tiered, trap-bracketed par 3 green FROM THE WHITES.

Yeah. It's like that. I and I really like it. If you like to drive the ball, this is your course. If you can't drive the ball, stay away.

I wish they weren't hurting for money. The sand traps really need some attention. They used to have a machine that groomed the traps. No more...thats for sure. The greens were in nice shape, true, and slick, for the most part. Several have been infected with fungus. Fairways are very nice.

I played Del Monte many, many times when I was a Dukes Club member in the 80s and 90s and loved it. At the time I was between a 1.5 and 5 index and I appreciated the challenges this course brought to bear. It rewarded long drives and punished even slightly errant ones.
However, back then, Del Monte had a lot more trees and the course was more picturesque and more challenging. As the trees came down, the owners never bothered to plant more. They've had thirty years to do this! Now, where there once were beautiful, strategically-placed trees, there are stumps and trunks with few limbs remaining. I saw no staked trees but I confess I was not looking for them. On a number of holes, "Old Del" is looking like an uninteresting, muni course. There was barely a dusting of sand over hardpack dirt in some bunkers and a full complement of Pebble Beach-quality sand in others. The inconsistency was disappointing. The greens were punched so I can't speak to the quality of the putting surface (Del Monte's postage-stamp-sized greens were always great. I assume they still are still true and slick). The rough is full of broadleaf weeds and it was punitively deep and thick. There hasn't been significant rain for two weeks. They couldn't mow?
Frankly, at a Golf Now $51 dollar rate, for a 2:10 tee time (which we had), I would not go back....with or without the punched greens. It is a poor value compared to the courses I can and do play for less or the same amount.
Sad to see how Pebble Beach Company treats this historical track.

Because I live a couple of miles from this course, I WANT Seascape to be a great place to play but instead, it is my course of last resort. I routinely drive 45 minutes to play what I consider to be top tier golf courses like San Juan Oaks, Eagle Ridge, Bayonet/Blackhorse, Poppy Hills.
Alas, you get what you play for; green fees are in line with an average (albeit pleasant), resort/executive style, golf course in an above-average (proximity to tourism) location. Seascape is a pretty, fairly short, course that feels as though it has been shoe-horned into a housing track.

While it sits in the middle of a housing development, it still manages to be a nice setting. It has a nice ocean view from the clubhouse dining room (good breakfast on the deck), and the course is lined with Eucalyptus and Monterey Pines. This course is particularly pretty in the morning and evening when the sun is low. If you just want to go out and get some fresh air and sunshine, this is your spot. It does not present the kind of challenges that make you want to come back and out-shoot the course designer.
Most of the year, most of the fairways are in good shape; however, where there lots of Eucalyptus trees, the turf suffers. The greens are kept in nice condition - they are lush, very receptive, and due to the cartoonishly sloped surfaces of some of the greens, are medium paced. Stay below the hole here to avoid three-putting.

The course is a mixture of 3 particularly difficult par threes (the fourth par three is a simple wedge shot), some fun (short and/or forgiving) par fives, and a bevy of par fours that, while not long, present unusual fairway elevations and elevated greens. There is a happy mixture of straight and dog-legged par fours. Expect to have some approach irons to greens that have nothing behind them but OB stakes.

Because of its proximity to the beaches Seascape gets a lot of visitor play during the summer months. Pace of play on the weekends can be dismal. Check with the pro shop.
NOTE: During the rainy season, this track ranges from poor to unplayable. It needs at least a couple of weeks to dry out after a good-sized storm.

I play Monterey courses regularly and this is a bargain. If you are looking for perfection, you will have to play elsewhere and pay far more that an Laguna Seca.

I played this often when I was a teaching pro and found it moderately challenging from the championship tees. Now, at 64, a find it moderately challenging from the white tees. It is a good mixture of: hole shape, elevation changes (except for hole #9), bunkering, green elevations, and difficulty.

Greens speeds are appropriate for the amount the greens are sloped but they are always slightly lumpy...not terribly so, but if you are a "die it in the cup" putter, you will pay dearly.

Laguna has one unpleasant hole (#9) and one marginal hole (#10).

#9 is a trudge, straight up hill, and unreachable for most. To make a bad hole worse, the green is elevated and shoved up against out of bounds at the rear. To the left is a gaping sand trap, to the right is an low hanging oak tree that forces bump-and-run chips to a banked, elevated green. I have never met anyone who likes this hole. It is drudgery at best unless you are long off the tee. If you aren't one, as I no longer am, just relax into a three shot hole. Pressing off this tee will still result in a three shot hole so DON"T. Get some air under your drive...think about switching to a three wood here as pounding a driver into the up-sloping fairway is poor strategy. Again, if you aren't long, then you will need three shots. Don't fight. Instead, enjoy some free easy, no pressure shots and try for a one putt. Just guessing here, but I think the average player's score on this par four is double bogey.

#10's crazily-left-to-right-sloping, steeply downhill fairway sets up the average golfer for a lost ball. It REQUIRES a well-placed straight, tee shot right down the left side, or a draw down the middle-left, both of which, the average recreational golfer is hard-pressed to produce off the tee. Slicers will either layup off the tee with a club that they can control, or resign themselves to hitting three from the tee (AND THEN laying up with a club they can control).

The rest of the holes are a mixture of easy, medium, and challenging holes. #13 is an exceptional hole, worthy of any premium course, especially from the back tees.