If you haven't played the Navy Destroyer. Do it. It's a great round of golf. Conditions were much better than every other course I've played for months but a bit below what the course is when it's at it's best. Greens had probably reached medium speed by our later tee time. Everything had mostly good coverage - Here and there things got a bit thin in the fairways and rough. Bunkers good - not great - but my playing partner said he was in one that didn't have enough sand in it. People must agree because it was busy even during the week at 11. Despite that, POP was fine as we only waited a little on all the par 3 holes.

Scholl Canyon is the answer to the quiz question of: "What is the worst course with the best views in the Greater LA area?". I decided to take a stroll down nostalgia blvd. and play this course that I hadn't played in close to 30 years. I could only remember 3-4 holes - all on the back 9 - which is where the course gets wacky.

This par 60 exec 18 is short even for an exec course. But it has it's own version of teeth. It starts with the chewed up and slanted tee boxes and ends with the surprisingly difficult greens. In between, fairways are thin and slanted so almost nobody lays up on any but a couple of the par 4's. Lumpy ground and patchy grass make chipping difficult. It's more than easy to lose a ball here with red stakes and out of bounds in play on over half the holes. Use a colored ball on the front 9 because range balls litter most of the holes on that half.

I probably wont come back again soon but if you do - take the time to enjoy the views of a huge section of the greater LA area from the hill you are playing from. Enjoy watching seagulls fight for scraps as the neighboring landfill get a load of trash dumped on it and marvel at the "design" William P Bell used to create this oddity.

There seem to be enough reviews from our outing of this course so I will describe my experience in the form of three Haikus.

Am I on the green?
Please tell me I'm on the green.
No, the sand again...

Nice shot on the green!
Something happened soon after...
Bring a pitching wedge.

Wow, what a cool hole!
Local knowledge would help here.
When can I come back?

Played in an SCGA outing and even though it was shotgun - got to start from the first tee. This course reminded me very much of the majority of outings I've been on. Course is relatively tight where any wayward drive is likely to add 2 to your score. Greens are faster than most public courses and the green complexes are smaller and more difficult than average. We played from the tips due to the Alpha male in our group and even though it's only 6400 yards from there - it's par 70 slope 132 and don't forget "hills". By the third hole, all my headcovers were off and constantly in use.

Good things - course conditions generally good. Greens were rolling well - too well on downhill putts - bunkers were especially good and fairways had even coverage. The course was also more attractive that I had anticipated. Lots of tee boxes had great vistas of the area the course wound through.

Less so - Close mown super grabby kikuyu is the worst to try and chip from - especially over a bunker onto a slick green. Every hole is a challenge and our whole group seemed to run out of gas by midway through the back 9 - nobody finished their round smiling. Maybe that's the problem with playing private courses one time - they are really meant to be played over and over so that the difficulty is cancelled out through repetition.

Others have well documented the state of Oak Creek - which is in great shape but allow me to spackle in some other details to help you understand the course. My third time here was just as likable as the previous two - it's a course I really enjoy playing.

It's a great design that encourages confident swings and rewards smart decisions. It's in the middle of Irvine but manages to transport the player out of the city to a golf Oasis.

It's got a wonderful practice area that includes generous chipping and sand practice.

My charge for drinks from the friendly cart girl seemed more than reasonable. My glazed salmon at the restaurant was very good and at $16, felt like a misprint on the menu. If I lived nearby - I would consider eating there just for the food and views.

It was a great place to host our GKCup final and hopefully future events.

In the 5 years since the last review - little has changed. It was also a hot day with only a smattering of people on the course. It's a decent layout for what it is and it's in pretty good shape considering where it is. The greens are unnaturally smooth - it was fascinating. Usually I don't like slow greens but these were closer to medium and so smooth that I could make a good stroke at the ball and get the expected results. Missing the green results in all types of lies from super grabby grass to regular grass to thin, thick and bare. My chipping suffered for it but I did wonder that if you could chip well here - would everywhere else feel easy?

15 par threes of mostly varying length and difficulty and 3 drivable? par 4's.

Do you think concrete and steel are as beautiful as flowers and grass? Do you prefer the sounds of progress over the sounds of wildlife? Shandin Hills has got you covered. Straddling the 215 freeway and pressed against a shockingly busy stretch of train tracks - there are few holes where some vehicle isn't moving in your peripheral vision.

I was worried about playing here since not much is said about this course, but was pleasantly surprised. Fairways were in mostly great shape, greens were smooth and consistent - also apparently the perfect speed for my putting style because even my misses stopped near the hole. Only $21 to walk during the week and an under 4 hour round was all I could hope for.

If you're a "miss left" person, you could have a miserable day because almost all the OB is left and it's in play. I found two errant shots overly punished by finding my ball snuggled against an OB fence even though the shots weren't terrible.

Tee boxes were, in general, a mess - it was weird because all the grass around them looked flatter and healthier then they were. The other big thing here is the bunkers - there are a lot and they are a main feature of this course. The heavy dirt that fills them makes them even more punitive than your average bunker and probably the biggest deficiency most golfers would point out.

According the group ahead of us that we met on the turn, if I had spend $14 more on my round, it would have included a cart, range balls, and food before, during and after the round. That's an amazing deal - and I was a bit jealous of those guys as they strained to pick up their tees and waddled to their cart on the 10th tee.

My on again off again relationship with CW is back on. It's been a while since I played here due to problems with getting out on-time and course conditions. We printed out an old e-mail from nearly a year ago offering us a free foursome after 10am as an apology from the last time we got out 45 minutes late and played on mostly dead grass. Surprisingly, they honored it, even though our tee time was 9:30 AND said we could use it again for a twosome since we were only a twosome. I was beyond shocked. They sent us out early where we got around in under 4 hours.

I'm not sure if the conditions were they best they've ever been there - but I can't remember the course like this. They've been making small but smart changes to the layout, many of the holes have thoughtful mown areas around the green - not just green, fringe, rough.

Fairways and rough are in good shape. Everywhere is green. There seems to be a renewed pride in this course and I'm happy to see it. It's a good course with nearly half the holes being fairly easy and half being more of a challenge.

Two caveats to my glowing review. The greens are still a little bumpy from the aeration a while ago and the sand traps we were in were inconsistent.

Overall, I'm happy to have this course back in my rotation since it's not far away.

In many ways my round at Soule Park was for me the perfect round of golf. Perfect weather, on a course you can walk for only $40 bucks on the weekend. The surrounding hills were enrobed in green and looking majestic. The course - very green - challenging but not hard so you can enjoy the company of the friends you came with without someone becoming sullen over their lost balls and dignity.

The greens hadn't yet completely healed from the aeration but we agreed that the little bit of slowness and bumpiness offset the difficulty of faster greens we might have faced - so nobody was bothered. Tee boxes were mostly fine but had to move my tee when I found myself standing in a depression a couple of time. Fairways were good and rough was thick - really thick in places - where, when trying to find a ball - the four of us had to set up one of those lines like they do when investigators are searching a forest for clues.

Soule Park is an easy place to have an enjoyable round of golf.

Played an SCGA outing in wonderfully warm conditions. Just like golf used to be 7 or so months ago. Went in with lowish expectations and Porter Valley sneaked over them with little room to spare. While par 70 it does have three par 5's and most of the par three's are over 200 yards so it rarely feels short and since it's full of huge sand filled calderas guarding tiered and tilted greens - it also rarely felt easy. Front nine was friendly enough but after the turn the walls started closing in and the houses kept inching toward the fairways until the cart path becomes and integral part of the fairway (they have special rules to deal with that).

Tee boxes, fairways, and rough all had a public course feel to them but on a slightly better than average day. The bunkers I was in had heavy sand that caught me off guard the first time I hit in one. Greens were smooth and fairly fast - with all the undulations - difficult to score on.

For me the back nine is the reason I probably won't play here again. Watching a ball travel into somebody's back yard or worse detracts too much from the fun. I kept the ball in play all day but not everyone in my group was so lucky and next time it will probably be me.

Was it the best idea to play golf in a rainwater catch basin after days of rain? No, not at all. Balboa's strength is not drainage. Depending on where you hit the ball, your ball could be fine or stuck in a muddy area or puddle. Had to lift clean and search for land 4 times. While this didn't bother me, what brought an Iron Eyes Cody tear to my face was all the golf cart tracks doing governmental shutdown levels or destruction to the course. Sure, a lot of rope was used to keep lazy idiots from doing their worst but thoughtlessness beats rope any day. A pair of strangers in my group made me wince a couple of times with completely unnecessary driving leaving a wake of tracks behind them.

The surprising positives - the two bunkers I was in were in good shape and the greens seemed unnaturally smooth. I would say medium plus speed which is as fast as Balboa goes. I also had some really nice grass to chip out of on some of the holes - others - a bit patchy.

Interested to see how the course fares after it's had time to dry out and grow.

There are ways other than fences to keep the private country club feel to your course. Tustin Ranch uses the 1-2 punch of incredibly high rates and incredibly average golf to keep outsiders away. I was able to find the rare TeeOff single player time on a Sunday that saved well over $100 off of rack rate and still felt like I overpaid.

Check-in was a look at the computer and a "You're good to go!". So I had to ask the questions of an outsider: "Go Where?" and "Go When?". Once directed to the carts and starter - I was informed that even though I was the fourth to a threesome. They were part of a larger group that all knew each other and had made themselves into foursomes of which I would not be a part. I could go by myself or wait until I was adopted. Since it was already past my tee time - I drove solo for six holes until a threesome of locals caught me and the four sloths playing ahead of me.

The course is an obvious "Squeeze as much as you can out of the basic plot of land you were given." The course is laid out like a airport concourse maximizing the houses parked at their respective terminals. So you have all the types of holes you might expect. Straight Par 5's and a par 3 with water next to the green. Straight holes where bunkers pinch way in to force a lay-up or a perfect shot to one side. Straight holes where you have to lay up before a unlikely creek. Normal straight holes. And a short "drivable" severe dogleg par 4 like the 3rd at Monarch beach - except there is no view here to speak of.

Someone has a sore pointer finger because there is a lot of white GUR circles out there. Fairways are pretty good elsewhere but can feel like light rough in areas - rough is never deep but could be anything else. I found the bunkers to look nice but be an inch of fluff over a dense pack of sand which led to too much bounce or too much dig whichever way I tried to play the shot. Greens were good medium speed and mostly smooth.

I'm not sure if there was another soul from the "outside" playing that day. Everyone I saw seemed to know each other. I felt like I'd bought a member for a day outing instead of a tee time.