Brostyle1972

Met some friends from San Diego at Rams Hill for a round on Saturday. They have played the course a number of times over the years and have great things to say about it. One friend warned me that the recent reviews said that some of the fairways were patchy and the course was willing to offer up a free round if you were not satisfied with the conditions. It was crazy windy on the day we played, with the winds probably gusting close to 40mph and they picked up on the 4th hole for us.

The issues with the fairways seem to be near and surrounding all of the large fairway bunkers. Looks like the groundskeepers have either sprayed some sort of green ground cover/paint on the fairways, so that they do not look brown from the tee boxes. I hit poor tee shots on the first two holes and landed right in the middle of “The Green Stuff.” When I hit out of this area, both time it was damp mud below “The Green Stuff” and my ball went no where.

The rest of the round, I took the time off the tee to aim at the other side of the fairway from the fairway bunkers or at the larger, lush patches of grass in the fairway. Sometimes they were much shorter than I wanted to hit off the tee box, but I knew it would be better than playing out of the gunk.

I am no groundskeeper, but I would think that the course should lay down a bunch of grass seed and then cover it with “The Green Stuff” and try to get it to grow back and just place some Ground Under Repair stakes up. Give people a free drop outside of that area and let the grass grow back.

I was aware of the issue before we drove to the course, I had some fun with my friends and I shot an 86 in really heavy wind, so I did not ask for my money back. Overall it was a pretty good day. I hope that they can fix the fairway situation, so that the next time we come back the course is in tip top shape.

The only other issue that zi had was on a busy Saturday morning (we teed off around 8:30am) there was only 10 stalls on the driving range set up. Everyone had to wait for 10 or 15 minutes to warm up and there was 2 or 3 people waiting at each stall. Meanwhile, they were only using half of the range space. On. Tuesday or Wednesday it makes sense to limit the range, so that the grass can grow back, but not on the weekend with a full tee sheet. You guys are better than that.

I have lived in the Seattle area for almost five years and I have purchased the Oki Card every year that I have lived here. It used to be a great value and the courses were always top notch. I played last Saturday with two good friends and on the first fairway we notice a lot of brown spots. When we got up to the green, the grass was just as bad. Not sure if there is some sort of a fungus growing, but it looks downright terrible or the grounds crew decided to stop watering the course.

Weird thing is that we have had a somewhat wet summer in the Seattle area and it has not been hot at all. Mostly overcast and cloudy all summer, so the course should not be brown and looking sickly.

I also noticed that all of the coolers on the course were bone dry. Could not get a drink of water, unless I paid for it when the beverage cart came around.

Not a great experience all around. Greens were in good shape, but that is I can say positively about the whole round. Everything else was disappointing.