November 17

Greens are a bit soft but are in very good condition. Lack of play and the perfect fall weather has allowed the course to speed the greens to the point where you really have to pay attention. The size, undulations and speed make for a challenging day.
Fairways are dormant and have tight firm lies.
First cut of rough is dormant but has been left alone which is helpful for keeping balls out of the native unplayable grass.
Native grass unfortunately continues to thrive and is green thick and nasty. Any ball hit into these areas (which are everywhere) are almost always lost and result in delays and increased pace of play. I realize that for aesthetics and challenge they are necessary, but it would be ok not to continually water them. Allowing them to thin out would be a huge boost to PoP.
Sand as always is very good and the deep bunkers both in the fairway and greenside are challenging.
Tees are level with dormant or semi-dormant coverage and little to no divot damage.
One of the group members pointed out the absurdly low slope rating from the blue tees (116) and we debated if the system was in need of adjustment to not emphasize length as much or if the reviewer never left his cart lol. This course is definitely more challenging from the blues than several other local tracks with higher slopes.

11-12-17

Fall update

Greens are in good shape and like many in the area are running quick thanks to favorable temps. Tees are all green with occasional torn up patches and a few unlevel areas. Bunkers are hard with a very thin layer on top. Fairways going/are dormant. Pace was very poor due to tournament and a great special they are running, which resulted in too many players and nowhere to go. 5hrs groan.

Played 10-29-17

Quick update as not much has changed

Fun layout but greens are still being invaded by unwanted grasses.

The areas most affected were bumpy and all the greens were rolling on the slow side.

Worth the price as there are always good deals.

October 10 2017

Windy day on a firm fast track with spectacularly fun, fast and challenging greens.

What can be said that has not already about this place?

Players that want perfectly green pristine conditions on every inch of the course will be more inclined to think people are over rating the course. I personally loved having tight lies and the option to play the ball on the ground.

Brief review as this was a last minute choice due to severe Santa Ana conditions.

Everything was in good shape except the greens which were recently worked. Yes we knew, but Rustic was closed and 3 of the 4 of us had traveled long distances (Oz being the furthest) to get together so we picked Westlake.

Edit to add - somehow the rating was changed to reflect my Rustic score. It should have been 4.3 due to the greens.

Played 9-30-17

Quick update

Always a challenging layout this course is in very good condition at this time.

Greens were spectacular. Smooth and fast.

Bunkers; long the sore spot on this course appear to have had sand added at least to the greenside bunkers.

Overall- An old CC layout with hit and miss conditions and a variety of holes routed thru homes.

Pace- Teed off mid morning after the early times and never had anyone in front or behind the entire day. 3.5 hours included an at the "turn" long drive back to the clubhouse to get drinks as water on course was scarce.

Conditions- The conditions varied greatly. Greens ran medium to quick, some were very bad, some nice and smooth, and some in between. Bunkers were crusty but had good sand bases, many had been neglected by players and left unraked. Tees, consistent coverage with some unlevel and/or divoted areas. Fairways mostly good with some bare areas and some unkempt areas. Rough was thick and unmown in some areas and uniform in others. There is a serious critter problem and there were many areas of the course with the corresponding damage from tunneling, feeding, burrowing etc.

Staff- Were all extremely nice and easily the best part of the experience.

Value- Good enough for us to drive over from the Central Valley.

Layout- Kikuyu on most of the course makes it play long for the yardage. Not knowing this was previously 36 holes it appeared to us as if the layout had been altered by abandoning holes and adding others. Apparently it is a compound layout of holes from the original two courses reduced to 18. A few of the holes may be described as quirky or unique depending on your pov, #7 and #10.

Amenities- Aging but well kept.

Overall- One of the top three courses in the area with public access.

Pace- After a tournament teed off at 230 carts were shut off at 6 with two holes to play.

Conditions- Greens were in average shape at best. 1st green was very poor and the rest showed signs of the tournament, certainly not the pristine condition normal for the course. The rest of the course was in very good shape.

Staff- Shut the carts off and politely (condescendingly) turned them back on so we could drive in, we had two 20+ handicaps playing a difficult course and it was one guy's birthday round another 15-20 mins wouldn't have been the end of times.

Value- $50 for twilight is on the high side for the area, $50 for 16 holes is straight up gangster.

Layout- The front nine has two holes that feel forced, 3 seems built around the homesites and 9 is wedged between a road and the cart barn and a creek. The back nine is the best nine holes in the valley design wise. Hands down. Simply magnificent!

Amenities- Everything you need.

Sept 2017

Greens 1 and 4 are complete disasters and have some sort of fungus or IDK. Other greens were between very good to some bad spots to bad areas.

Fairways were long and slow but had very good coverage.

Tees were lush but many had not been mown and were too long.

Rough was thick with areas that had not been mown.

Sand was thin but consistent in the bunkers I was in and/or noticed.

Fun layout, fast pace, friendly staff, good price. I hope they get a handle on their greens.

August 2017

Update

Tees and fairways in very good condition

Bunkers poor as usual with hard crusty surface and occasionally furrowed and/or wet

Greens were good on the Lakes nine but the Valley nine had some sort of disease or such and there were large areas of bare spots on most of the greens

Played 8-5-17

Just an update. Once again this course continues to baffle. The winter and all the rains were tough on the course with large areas of out of control growth and poor conditions all around. In the spring they seemingly were back on track and the conditions were roughly average for munis in this area. This weekend was a step back. There was good growth on the fairways and tees but many of the tees were placed in the chewed up areas. Bunkers I was not in.

Greens were in poor shape and there were many with invasive grass, bermuda I'm guessing that looked almost like crabgrass and all were long, slow and patchy.

This layout is very fun with the tight tree lined fairways and the river but unless you need to add it to your list I would wait until condition of the greens improve.

GK Guru outing (well there were two of us--come on CenCal guys)
7-23-17

The course is very lush right now. Those of you that have played here before know that the course is normally setup to imitate a very hard fast links style.

Greens were softer than normal and were holding shots well and allowing for some pull back on well struck shots. They were rolling smooth and slower than normal at medium speed. The speed is actually a good thing because these greens are huge with many slopes and swales. The only damage was from neglectful golfers (how can we educate the non avid players?) and it was only in areas where people tend to hit more shots on the surfaces.

Tees all lush, green, level and very few areas with any divots.

Bunkers unlike most Cen Cal tracks have sand and it is consistent throughout and very playable. The depth of the bunkers is very challenging, anything from chest high to one where I was standing 10' above Johnny. The fairway bunkers are not much shallower and most of the time hitting into one is a blast out with a sw and is equivalent to a penalty with no real chance to advance.

Fairways are very different than in the past. Before they were very firm and fast with lots of rollout. Now they are longer and softer and make the course play much longer but also keep shots from going off into the nasty fescue. Great coverage all around.

Rough in the past was non existent until you reached the heavy fescue areas where even finding the ball is a coin flip. Now there is an intermediate cut that helps keep balls in playable areas.

The longer cut in the fairways combined with the new cut of rough is an excellent move by the course. First- in the past many well hit balls would end up in bad areas because there was nothing to stop them from going off the sloped edges. Second the pace of play has improved noticeably due to far fewer searches for balls because the fairway and first cut of rough keep them out of the nasty stuff, where as previously mentioned, even finding them is luck.