Joined my high school buddy for a round here after at 130pm on 8/31/21 taking a few weeks off after the heat wave down at San Vicente Resort. Weather in SoCal has been strange this summer with hot per... Continue »

Joined my high school buddy for a round here after at 130pm on 8/31/21 taking a few weeks off after the heat wave down at San Vicente Resort. Weather in SoCal has been strange this summer with hot periods interspersed with overcast cooler monsoon weather, and we were lucky to catch a very pleasant afternoon. Course was steady busy and we teed off on time and finished in just under 3.5 hr on this shorter, par 60 course. Paired with two locals who knew each other and yakked the entire 18 holes, to the point where we were 1.5 holes behind on #7, but we picked up the pace after I said something. Still don’t know how you can play golf in flip-flops!

Course conditions were pretty good. Greens were receptive with good coverage and rolled at medium+ speeds; they were getting a little bumpy as the day wore on. Unfortunately found many unrepaired ballmarks. Fairway lies were mostly OK with scattered bare areas; rough was cut fairly short and was benign. Kikuyu around the greens made chips and pitches challenging, especially for my wedge disability. I wasn’t in a bunker but they looked OK and rakes were out. Many of the tees are sloping and need leveling.

Hole #9 continues to bedevil me and there’s no good way to play it, with the hole bisected by the huge drainage ditch 100 yards short of the green on the 315 yd hole. The problem is that anything more than 150 off the tee is on the downslope of the ditch, cut as bushy rough to keep you out of the creek but you are on a steep downhill lie to an elevated green. I hit 9-iron off the tee to stay on the flat but that left a 4-iron to the green, and had misadventures in the kikuyu border, so lots of frustration on this hole. And most of the “layup” area severely slopes to the left so even a layup has no guarantee of a good lie. I think the course needs to look at modifying the slopes with a series of benches that will preserve the flood control aspects of the ditch (the reason it’s there in the first place) while giving golfers more options to play the hole.

Overall a relaxing play.