I played. Del Monte on Tuesday with a late morning tee time. Conditions are very nice all around. The small greens roll true at a nice fast pace. ... » More

I played. Del Monte on Tuesday with a late morning tee time. Conditions are very nice all around. The small greens roll true at a nice fast pace. Fairways were lush throughout and the rough was very manageable. The sand traps were a perfect 10. Super fluffy sand throughout. This is a very easy course to walk so it was great to get out and stretch the legs after my MTB ride the previous day. The downside of the tight parkland setting is the greens are very close to the next tee box. Great for transfers when walking, not so great when things backed up and you had two groups waiting on the tee box, chatting away while you’re lining up a birdie putt. POP was ok for 10 holes then got horribly slow. The layout is so so but the conditions are up there with the big three.
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Out for my monthly round at Spanish Bay with Bob. We tee’d off at our normal 9ish time in another beautiful day. No fog all day and about a 1 club... » More

Out for my monthly round at Spanish Bay with Bob. We tee’d off at our normal 9ish time in another beautiful day. No fog all day and about a 1 club wind on the last 6-8 holes. Course remains in great shape tee to green with the greens being maybe a touch better than last month.

We were paired with a 10 year old (soon to be 11) phenom!! Her name is Teagan Tudla and she is the real deal. She’s won several titles in the under 10 category and next week will be her first tournament in the big girl class (11-13). Teagan and her parents were absolutely wonderful people to be around. My game stunk to high Heaven but it was so awesome watching Teagan tear up the course. She came within a few inches of a hole in one on #8. I can’t wait to tee it up with Teagan again. But next time she’s giving me 5 strokes a side! And if we ever do another GK Cup team event, well sorry Peter, but I know who my new partner will be!!

As far as the course goes, each month there’s more and more talk about what the new design will be like. Unfortunately, I don’t have any information. At least not from a reliable source. If Jeff (head pro) does know, he’s not telling us.
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What a glorious day yesterday!! Bob and I tee’d off just after Noon on what was one of the most perfect golf weather days on the peninsula all year! ... » More

What a glorious day yesterday!! Bob and I tee’d off just after Noon on what was one of the most perfect golf weather days on the peninsula all year! Sunny and about 72 degrees with hardly a breath of wind. The fog did roll in with about 2 1/2 holes left to play but given a couple of weeks ago it was sweater and vest weather and a couple weeks before that up the road at Poppy Hills we couldn’t see the greens through the thick fog from 100 yards out, this was a big welcome.

Condition wise, I’m happy to report that the course is in fantastic shape. Back in May and June the course was starting to slip a little bit. I was concerned that since they are shutting it down for a makeover in March 2026, that they were going to start letting conditions slide downhill. That is not the case, I can assure you. Greens were excellent, rolling true at a nice medium-fast pace. They did get a little bumpy towards the end but that’s to be expected at 5pm on poa annua grass.
Fairways were near perfect. very lush throughout the entire course. Tee boxes were level with ample coverage. No issues with the sand traps or the rough. Beverage cart was around several times and for those who do take a cart they have GPS in them. POP was about 4 3/4 hours which is to be expected for a weekend tee time here. All in all, Spanish Bay is in fantastic shape with ocean views galore. It’s no surprise that it’s one of my favorite go to courses on the Monterey Peninsula.
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DeepSea14 and I met up at the newly redesigned Poppy Ridge. Gone are the three separate 9 hole layouts used in rotation to create 18 holes for the da... » More

DeepSea14 and I met up at the newly redesigned Poppy Ridge. Gone are the three separate 9 hole layouts used in rotation to create 18 holes for the day, and in place is one standard 18 hole layout with a separate Par 3 course. This is obviously my first time playing the new layout, and I will admit that I only played the old course twice, so I didn’t have a huge sample to compare it with.

Before I go into the layout, I will give you the down and dirty only the conditions. Overall, very nice. Nothing below an 8. Greens rolled smooth and fast. Fairways had complete coverage throughout the entire course. Fairways presented tight lies but the trade off is good roll out.

Sand traps were an 8-9 in that they had deep fluffy sand. Only 1 was damp and a little compacted. tee boxes were level and divot free. There isn’t any rough to speak of here. Just lush fairway and dirt. Maybe Peter can recall something different.

Onto the layout. It’s a hilly course with WIDE open fairways. Probably the widest fairways I’ve seen in a long time. Much much issue off the tee. A bombers dream for sure. I struggled with the driver all day, yet I finished with the same ball I started with and didn’t have a single double bogey. Like I said WIDE open. Not a tree in sight. There is now only one water hazard on the entire course. That’s a bummer in my opinion. I’d say it was a water conservation thing but they have a ton of excess grass on tee boxes that are 100+ yards long and tightly mowed
“Fairway” grass from tee to green on a 200 yard par 3. If they needed to conserve water there are plenty of areas they could change that would save water yet not affect the playability of the course.

Greens were very large with modest undulations. Some of the greens rivaled those at Rancho Solano in nearby Fairfield, CA. BTW all flags are blue at Poppy Ridge we walked so we didn’t have access to the GPS in the carts and my golf app hadn’t updated the system to the new layout yet. We were often guessing at the pin location in relation to the overall layout of the green.

As mentioned before, the tee boxes while level and lush were. Huge. Sometimes a 100 yards long. We walked the course and for the most part it’s a fairly walkable course. There were only two real back breakers of a transfer. One was actually on a par 3 from the tee to the green which was across the gully. You had to retrace your path from the tee box back to the cart path and walk around the ditch then either walk all the way around the Side of the hill or hike through the barren land with rocks. A little bridge and path would have been nice.

Overall, I preferred the old layout to the new one. Not sure what the motivation was behind it as they didn’t make it any easier to walk nor did they insert any water conservation measures.

Am I disappointed? No, I’d play here again. The conditions coupled with the (NCGA) price is worth it alone. And it’s not that it’s a bad layout. I just preferred the old one.
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Every time I play Cinnabar Hills, I walk away with a smile and say I need to play here more often. I played Wednesday morning with a 9AM tee time in... » More

Every time I play Cinnabar Hills, I walk away with a smile and say I need to play here more often. I played Wednesday morning with a 9AM tee time in bright sunny weather. Routing was the Mountain/Canyon combination and this is only my second time playing the Canyon 9. Unlike the other nines, the canyon is much more strategic off the tee. It’s a good mix up from the grip it and rip it wide fairways of the other two layouts. Condition wise the course was in fantastic shape. The last time I played here was in May so naturally it was in great shape. Weather has been hot this last week and you wouldn’t know it by the condition of the course.

Fairways were near perfect. Very lush with a nice emerald green glow throughout. Fairways presented a great hitting surface along with a decent amount of roll out. Easily rated a 9 but could be argued they were a 10. Tee boxes were also in that 8+ to 9 rating. Level and lush with ample coverage. I was only in one sand trap and it had a good amount of fluffy sand.

The rough was the “weak” spot. For the most part the rough was lush throughout but there were a handful or two of dead /thin areas. Still rated at a 7 so not horrible.

The greens were nice as well. The greens on the Mountain course were super smooth and rolled at a fast pace. Greens on the Canyon side were noticeably slower but still rolled true. The greens at Cinnabar are a perfect blend of challenging undulations but fair.

POP was 4.5 hrs and the carts have GPS to the pin.

Cinnabar is a public course that has a country club feel to it. Oh, and not a house within miles if you’re looking for a course outside a housing track.
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