My group played Oak Quarry for the first time on Tuesday. The entire experience was great. The greens were a little on the slow side which I suspect is due to the heat (it was in the upper 90s). Our only complaint was the lack of any sand in any of the bunkers. Despite that one flaw, we had a great time.

This is my second review of this course. I played it for the second time on Sunday, 7/18. Having a little course knowledge from my first round really helped. It's still a little weird not being able to retrieve golf balls in the "environmentally protected" areas. You do have to be accurate off the tees.

I shot an 80 and was very pleased with my round. I showed up as a single and was at the first tee in 15 minutes. It was very hot on the back nine, but what do you expect when you start at 9:00 AM. The greens are in great shape, and I did notice that they seemed to hold second shots a lot better than they did on my first round. All of the messages/notices on the GPS are a little annoying. The staff was very friendly.

I think that a lot of players would benefit from playing this course from the white tees, at least for their first round at this course. Unless you can hit straight drives consistently, several of the holes will be intimidating from the blue tees. I hope that they are able to keep the cost under $100 for weekend play after the clubhouse is built otherwise they will be competing with TPC Valencia which I think is a better track, although currently more expensive.

I played Angeles National on Monday, July 5 for the first time. I had waited a long time for this course to finally open. While I thought that the courese was a fair challenge of my golfing skills, I was a little disappointed. Here are some of the things that need improvement.

1. Not being able to look for or retrieve an errant golf ball that lands in an "environmentally sensitive" area, even though the ball is in plain view is just not acceptable. I understand that the owner/developer had to make several compromises with the environmentalists in order to build the golf course, but this "rule" is going too far.

2. What's with the brown spots on the fairways? This course should be in top shape, and we have not had the really hot weather yet.

3. I understand the effort to have fast greens, but there has to be a compromise. Having shots that land on the front of the green run off the back is not fun.

4. They need to check the watering schedule for the bunkers. Hitting dirt or compacted sand on every bunker shot is not what I expect on an upscale course, and especially on a course that just opened.

5. While the staff was generally great, the ladies who operate the beverage carts need to be instructed so that they are not coming up behind groups when someone is teeing off.

On the positive side, I thought that the pace of play was great. I hardly had to wait on a shot the entire round. Perhaps this track just needs to mature.

On March 30th I played Talega with my 89 year old Dad. He is a member of the Pacific Club just down the street from Talega, but I convinced him that we should Talega. The weather was fantastic, but that is as good as it got.

When we arrived for our 12:08 start time, we were told that there were not any carts available as they had over booked the course. Then, we had to haul our own clubs down to the practice green because the crew was too busy to do it for us. Next we were told that our start would be delayed 30 minutes (which it was) because of the cart shortage.

More of a problem was that we were playing behind a tournament. The entire tournamnet group seemed to spend more time at the beer cart than on their golf. The course was littered with c%ck tail glasses starting with the first tee. There no supervision of the pace of play. We had to wait on every shot on every hole, the entire round. We did not finish play until after 6:00 PM. On many holes, there were 3 groups waiting to tee off. I expect this type of "experience" when I play a municipal course. I do not expect it when I pay what Talega charges.

Needless to say, my Dad and I did not have a good experience.