Black Horse was once a favorite track that eventually disappeared from my playlist. Well after playing here on Tuesday, I’m happy to say it’s back. Yes the course is unrecognizable if you haven’t... Continue »

Black Horse was once a favorite track that eventually disappeared from my playlist. Well after playing here on Tuesday, I’m happy to say it’s back. Yes the course is unrecognizable if you haven’t been here in a few years. Gone are the hundreds of Cypress trees that lined the fairways (and blocked views of the ocean). In their place are now dozens of homes. It is what it is. $3m dollar homes bring in more money than $59 Golf Now specials! But on the positive side is both courses remain fully intact with their original routing. Yes some wasteland areas have been added mainly from the tee box to the “new” beginning of the fairway a la Spanish Bay and Del Monte. However, unlike Spanish Bay it doesn’t take a monster drive to just reach the fairway. So kudos to Bayonet/Blackhorse for keeping both courses open and intact.

Conditions have also returned to excellent all around. Greens are firm and fast (but very predictable speed in all directions). We played in early afternoon so by the time we got to the back nine the wind was up a bit so that had more do with holding the green than anything. Down hill, down wind and it was impossible. Uphill, up wind and you could stick it 3’ from the pin.

Fairways were nice and lush side to side with hardly a thin spot to be found on the entire course. Sand traps were just short of a perfect 10. In fact, they probably were a 10 but because I was in 7 of them, I had to knock them down somehow!

POP was 4 hours 15 mins. Which wasn’t bad considering it took us 10-15 minutes to tee off because the idiots in front of us drove their cart into the soft sand / wasteland area and got stuck. Carts now have GPS in them which I don’t believe they did before.

As I mentioned before, they removed a ton of trees. This has opened up numerous views of the bay that weren’t there before. There is still construction going on but it’s traditional contractor stuff and not the heavy earth moving equipment that was here before.

I can finally say that a once favorite peninsula course is now worth playing again. Course conditions and layout now match the entry price.