bmedia

Had a tee time set for Sunday, and I don't think I could have been more disappointed. For starters, I've played there before and hadn't been impressed, and was absolutely shocked to find out it cost $65 to play a round - had I done better research ahead of time I'd have chosen to play one of the many other courses around town that offer a superior experience at a lesser cost, but that's just the beginning.

My biggest gripe is pace of play - it took our foursome nearly 6 hours to complete a round, by far the longest round of golf I've ever played. We had to wait on every single hole, often multiple times. We finished the front 9 in 2:35, and as we pulled up to make the turn, realized there were 6 groups on the 10th hole (2 playing, 4 waiting). We had to wait about 35min to tee off, and should have just left at this point. By the time we had teed off on 10, we were already over 3 hours into our round (my group usually plays 18 in about 3:30). The ranger was at the 10th and we were "joking" with him about the slow pace, and he pretty much just laughed at us and said it's always like this out here, what did you expect? I did not expect that response, I can tell you that much!

For the price, I also expected things to be a little "nicer". Only about half of the ball washers actually had water in them. Some of the wooden hole markers (which double as trash cans) looked like they were about to fall over and hadn't been maintained in many years. The west course is across the street from the clubhouse (few min cart ride), and they only have two beverage vending machines (cash only) at the turn. The sister course stonehedge is set up the same with a course across the street, but they have a nice snack shack at the turn so you don't have to drive all the way back to the clubhouse.

To sum things up, Gull Lake has (partially) opened a new course this year, and I think they'd have been better served by putting their resources into making the existing courses better, rather than price gouging to pay for the new course. I can only recommend playing if you get a steal of a deal and have all day set aside to wait.