Ventured up to the Central Valley today, with Eaglee along for the fun. We had our main round in the afternoon set at Rio Bravo CC, but for the morning warm-up round, chose Tulare. It was the closest ... Continue »

Ventured up to the Central Valley today, with Eaglee along for the fun. We had our main round in the afternoon set at Rio Bravo CC, but for the morning warm-up round, chose Tulare. It was the closest public/full-size course I hadn't played yet, so good enough for me. 7:00 tee time for $42 with cart a reasonable weekend rate. Teed off closer to 6:45, but played most of the day behind a threesome that we had to wait on plenty, but fast enough we didn't force the issue much. A little over 3 hours for the total pace, so no complaints there. I had low expectations of Tulare with no prior GK reviews/photos and the satellite images of the course being very browned out other than the greens. Was pleasantly surprised by pretty solid conditions. Tee boxes pretty nice. Fairways mostly good, though there were some thin (muddy in the early morning dampness) patches throughout. Rough more hit and miss with a lot of dead areas, but some nice lush patches, too. Bunkers very wet and heavy early on, but pretty good once they dried out some. Greens were very soft and any approach would leave a crater to repair. They were very slow and bumpy while wet with the spike marks of the group ahead of us really showing a lot, but sped up and smoothed out considerably once dried. Though I wouldn't necessarily recommend Tulare GC as it's a pretty basic and flat layout, it was definitely better than I expected and is a solid local's course with a friendly vibe around the clubhouse. The front nine has some relatively narrow tee shots and tight doglegs with big eucalyptus trees hanging over into play, but the greens are accessible. The back nine opens up a lot more, but seemed to play longer (though the scorecard has the total yardages pretty even front and back). Not too much trouble to get into, so very forgiving layout if you stay away from the trees, which as we all know is easier said than done. There is some noise around some parts of the course with the 99 closeby, a train track not too far off and a little airport next door. That is balanced by other parts of the course that are very quaint next to some expansive corn fields.