Played Harding on March 9. First official tee time out at 5:50, played as a single with a couple other singles who were really nice people. Condition... » More

Played Harding on March 9. First official tee time out at 5:50, played as a single with a couple other singles who were really nice people. Conditions-wise, I've had some really bad experiences on courses in LA recently due to all the damage and sogginess that the massive rains have caused. Today the conditions were really, really good after a few days of dry weather (finally!). The fairways were in good condition and were finally give some normal rollout and distance. The greens at Harding were near immaculate -- maybe the best I've ever seen and I've played the course a lot over the years. They are running really fast, pretty hard although mostly receptive to approach shots, and on some greens it was hard to even find any ball marks on the greens, so people must be doing a really good job of fixing them or a really bad job of hitting them! Anyhow, who knows how the conditions will be with more rain coming in, but I felt very fortunate to have played in the small window before the next rains arrive.
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Played on Sunday March 5. My advice is to stay away if you care about trying to play a regulation 18 hole golf course. Without any prior warning at ... » More

Played on Sunday March 5. My advice is to stay away if you care about trying to play a regulation 18 hole golf course. Without any prior warning at time of booking, I arrived to find that they are doing major construction on the fairway of the first hole. The mysterious sign posted at check-in was "Holes #1 and #7 teebox is on #7 fairway". Hard to even understand what that means (especially at 5:50 am in the dark), but basically they have ruined the experience on both holes #1 AND #7 by putting a makeshift tee area on the fairway on #7. So the first hole becomes a weird 80-yard par-3 (who knows?) with a large tree directly in the line towards the green, and #7 also becomes shortened to a 160-yard whatever hole. They just don't seem to care about the golf experience for those who want to play course #2 right now. Oh well. The rest of the holes seemed ok. Some greens were oddly unfair with putts that would literally go in full reverse after being putted up the slope and back down to your feet. I wasted a couple hours this morning before I just walked off and decided that it wasn't worth the time, so hope this helps anyone out there. Call the pro shop and find out what the situation is before you play if you must.
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Played the North course on Wed 12/28 for the first time ever. I had played South about 12 years ago. Was nervous about the weather until a couple da... » More

Played the North course on Wed 12/28 for the first time ever. I had played South about 12 years ago. Was nervous about the weather until a couple days beforehand things started to turn in our favor. Our tee time was 10:36, and we had overcast conditions prior to the round and for the first few holes (no fog thankfully!), and then after that, it was the must amazing sunshine and blue skies for the rest of the round. The North course is just stunning in terms of ocean views on pretty much every hole, and the back nine really shows off the geography and layout. The course conditions were pretty incredible, as they are preparing for the Farmers tournament in a few weeks. I never knew what PGA Tour rough was like until this day, and now I understand how amazing it is for the pros to be hitting long irons out of rough and into the greens only feet away from the cup. As an amateur playing this course, it's such an advantage to hit the fairways, so that's my advice to anyone who is playing in these conditions. Greens were pretty much perfect and mostly fair. I spent the first few holes putting very timidly and that was a mistake. The green speeds were medium fast, and you need to pay attention to the grain, but if you have a decent look, don't be afraid to just go for it. I avoided all the bunkers surprisingly, so can't comment on the conditions although some of my partners complained that they weren't at even resort-course level. Oh, and because of the course setup with the rough right now, they are playing a local rule where if you hit a ball into the rough and cannot find it within 1 minute of searching, you can have a free drop at the place where you believe the ball to be. That's how long the rough is I guess. I only had to drop once for this reason, and I'm pretty certain that another group that thought they hit into the same area played my ball anyway. But it's nice to feel like you can just drop without penalty and keep the pace moving along. Not sure if that's a year round thing or just when the Tour is coming into town.
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