I played the Valley/Desert combination last Friday. The tee time was 12:35 and we got out about 10 minutes late due to the cluster f... of carts and golfers trying to make the afternoon discount rates... Continue »

I played the Valley/Desert combination last Friday. The tee time was 12:35 and we got out about 10 minutes late due to the cluster f... of carts and golfers trying to make the afternoon discount rates. What a disorganized mess trying to get a cart assignment. I did not know if the starter who was assigning carts had my name or even if I had to check in with him. Once we got our carts it was all good. Play was a little on the slow side, but it was the Friday before New Years weekend, so I expected a lot of golfers. The course was in mediocre shape. Fairways looked a bit dry and maybe needed an overseed for the winter. It was playable and there was mostly good coverage of dormant turf. We played the Blue tees and they were fine. Good coverage and somewhat level. Okay, so you do have to pick a spot. The rough at this course is mostly nonexistent, so if you hit one past the fairway, it could go off into the native areas. I was in three bunkers and the sand was very deep in two of them. It had a nice brown color and a medium texture. Both bunkers had a lot of deep footprints and were unraked. That was two of the bunkers. The third bunker I was in (Hole 15/Desert #6, Par 4) behind the green, had no sand at all; just the white fabric liner. That was easy to slide my club under the ball and make a save there. The greens rolled fine. They had a good speed; not super fast but just enough to keep you from having to hammer any putts. All in all, it was fun. My buddy and I finished with another twosome in the dark. We had a couple of glow balls, so that made it a little better. There was a great sunset to look at on 18 Tee as we waited for the group ahead of us to move off. The overall conditions of the course seemed to be somewhat on the poor side, though. I had hoped there would have been more some improvement since my last visit, but it hasn't happened yet. I'm still hopeful. For $40 senior rate after 12, it was good.