I played Apache Stronghold Sun Feb 17th. It took me 80 minutes to drive there from east Mesa. You can read the previous reviews; mine is virtually identical. Great layout and staff (Rudy is great).... Continue »

I played Apache Stronghold Sun Feb 17th. It took me 80 minutes to drive there from east Mesa. You can read the previous reviews; mine is virtually identical. Great layout and staff (Rudy is great). Pretty bad conditions, but surprisingly playable.

The most noticeable bad thing is the fairways. Very thin and at this time of year dormant. However, the ground is soft, so shots aren't all that negatively affected. The bunkers are just dirt pits. There might be some soft sand somewhere out there, but mostly the bunkers are hard dirt. Fortunately for me I was only in one, and I picked my shot out of it fine. The tee boxes grass was spare, but not that bad for the most part.

The greens saved the experience. Not to say that they don't have problems. There were plenty of nasty sand-filled scars on many of them, and some just plain torn up areas. But the cups were located away from the worst of it, and the bent grass putted beautifully on most of them. I logged 34 putts, which is pretty close to normal for me.

One thing to mention is that the cart paths are dusty dirt. My bag ended up more dusty than I've ever experienced. But a few whacks with a towel after the round solved that. On the plus side range balls are gratis and they provide chilled water to start and there are ice chests of bottled water spread around the course.

This was my first time on this course, and I'll definitely be back. I'm very interested to see how the course plays with some green on the fairways, and there are quite a few holes that I'll have a lot better idea of how to approach next time on this very interesting layout.