Being a member of this course has been fun and often challenging over the years.
However this LA County course has slowly gone down hill. Most of the sand traps have little sand making the chances of... Continue »

Being a member of this course has been fun and often challenging over the years.
However this LA County course has slowly gone down hill. Most of the sand traps have little sand making the chances of getting close to the holes IMPOSSIBLE.
The greens are the slowest greens throughout LA County so a rolling wouldn’t hurt or a thinning of the greens.
Finally, the night lights around the practice putting green are not working.
I will say this course has lots of history and I love it but someone has to say something.

Sunday, 04/07/19 at 11:25 was our tee time- a fun day of match with a friend in a warm low 80ish temperature day with a slight breeze- a perfect day to walk. Found this deal in GolfNow for $40 a pl... Continue »

Sunday, 04/07/19 at 11:25 was our tee time- a fun day of match with a friend in a warm low 80ish temperature day with a slight breeze- a perfect day to walk. Found this deal in GolfNow for $40 a player no cart included, however, when I got the email, they threw in the cart anyway, but we were set to walk and we were glad we did. The pace was slow- lots of waiting on the tee which resulted to just ten minutes shy for a five hours of play. We also learned that Santa Anita will only be aerating once this year and that's going to be in August as we were told which added our favoring play on this course in an effort to avoid aerated greens from other courses. The staff at the pro shop were very helpful and got us checked in without any issues and gave us the option of teeing off 20 minutes earlier or on time- we chose to hit a few balls instead and got out on time. So the James Harrison Smith architect design turned out to be a very fun course to play- a good layout with some very good holes- so enjoyable, I would love to come back and play it again. I just love how the course offers positions to place tee shots for the best approach, however, in the miss position, it could leave the golfer with uneven lies that may or may not be that difficult. But surely, the course kept me interested all day and even inspired me to play better in the back. With all that said, the greens looks healthy with a taller cut of grass. It was both mixed in smooth and bumpy in different areas and it wasn't fast at all. There were a few ball marks, but not bad at all. The greens were hard although most our shots onto the greens held ok. (not all- lol) The fairways weren't a tight cut at all but the grounds were hard so the ball ran but were also held back some making it sort of an equal effect like a tight and closely mowed fairway. The rough had good ground coverings but it wasn't thick at all with the exception of hole #3 along the tree line on the right. The teeing grounds were a bit uneven as to where they placed the markers and a few of the blue markers were moved up to the white tees. Their greenside bunkers which I was in 3 times were sand covered with hard packed sand underneath. No beverage cart here. All in all the course earns a strong 6 if I had to rate it.

A little late with this review but still wanted to do so. A good friend and I went out on Friday 2/8 to play SA and had an 8:22 tee time. Got paired with a couple of cocky guys that frankly wish we ... Continue »

A little late with this review but still wanted to do so. A good friend and I went out on Friday 2/8 to play SA and had an 8:22 tee time. Got paired with a couple of cocky guys that frankly wish we hadn’t but that’s a story for another day. It was a beautiful day but there was a lot of rain the days before so I expected a lot of golfers. I was right, it was packed.

Got out about 15 minutes late following a slow 5 some. Finished in about 4:45. The fairways are still winter brown but did notice green starting to come about on many holes. I guess they weren’t able to get the mowers out yet so some of the fairways were thick and therefore not much roll out. Made the course play longer. Some bad lies out there but we were playing LCP. Not much rough to speak of. The bunkers however were hard. The rain I’m sure led to this but never seen this before at SA. Usually, they’re soft. Hopefully, they will address this when the rain stops.

The greens were better than I have seen them here before albeit grainy as usual and on the slow side. They were also hard and not holding.

Overall good conditions but I’m expecting better conditions in the upcoming spring time resulting from the rain.

I played Santa Anita GC at 10am on Saturday, 1/12/19, with my monthly club. We generally play here every January. It had rained early that morning, but the weather looked like it might clear around 9a... Continue »

I played Santa Anita GC at 10am on Saturday, 1/12/19, with my monthly club. We generally play here every January. It had rained early that morning, but the weather looked like it might clear around 9am. But, oops, it started sprinkling on #7 and pouring on #9. About half of our tourney group bailed out at the turn, but by the time we reached #11 the rain had stopped and we had clearing weather afterward. The course was not very crowded as a result of the earlier rain, and the many defections during the storm resulted in a very light crowd in the afternoon.

Greens very firm but with few ballmarks and rolled at a medium+ pace (they slowed down during and just after the deluge – LOL). Fairways with pretty good coverage everywhere. Rough could be very thin and playable or deep and juicy – we played lift/clean/place so lies were generally not a problem. Traps appeared to have adequate sand but it was obviously packed down by the rains.

Tee boxes were generally OK but #18 (we played the blue tees) is badly uneven and sloping to the left rear – this is a long dogleg right with a huge tree just to the right of a tee. A fade is almost the only play available here, but it’s hard to hit that shot off an uneven tee with the ball well above your feet!

Hole 3 doesn’t have a very well-defined fairway area – it seems like you are on deep, soft kikuyu everywhere! There are a couple other holes where the fairway definition is “vague” or where the mowers had not been in a few days.

Overall good conditions for a casual round.

Looked forward to playing my final round of 2018 at one of my favorite public courses. I have always enjoyed the rural feeling, the mountains in the background, and the rolling contours of the fairwa... Continue »

Looked forward to playing my final round of 2018 at one of my favorite public courses. I have always enjoyed the rural feeling, the mountains in the background, and the rolling contours of the fairways.

Our foursome had the third time off at 6:45am. Not nearly as cold as expected or predicted. In fact it was quite pleasant, considering it is December 31st. Very nice pace of play, about 3 hours 40 minutes for our walking foursome. Never waited, never had anyone behind us, so played at a nice relaxed pace.

However the course is NOT in condition right now. The fairways were very thin, borderline mud in some areas. Numerous areas in the rough exhibited the same conditions and frequently around the greens, there were areas of just dirt - no grass what so ever. Pitching to these crowned greens off super thin/tight lies makes for one very difficult task. This combined with the fact that the greens were very firm (Due to the cold weather?) made for some tough short game challenge. Despite the firmness of the greens, there putted very slow? Found two bunkers and both had well maintained sand.

I'm hopeful that the warm spring/summer will return Santa Anita to better conditions ? However the cost ($16.50) is such bargain, it's difficult to be too disappointed with any kind of golf on New Years Eve. Happy New Year !!!

Played today using the GK $20 w/cart coupon. POP was a surprising 4.5 H that did not seem that way? Maybe we were having to much fun? From a visual standpoint, the course looks good. But, looks can be... Continue »

Played today using the GK $20 w/cart coupon. POP was a surprising 4.5 H that did not seem that way? Maybe we were having to much fun? From a visual standpoint, the course looks good. But, looks can be deceiving. Fairways are mixture of grass and browned out areas, but are very thin and that thinness, is not conducive to good lies. But they roll forever. Virtually no rough to speak of anywhere on the course. Bunkers looked good, but the sand was very thin and saw a lot of skulled shots, due to poor sand condition. Tee boxes all looked like they needed water, though they were level and tee friendly. The greens, were hard and thin. Many of them still showing signs of aeration, after many days since. They were a mixture of fast/slow and showed no consistency. I have always like this layout. But I am not a fan of the current conditions and hope they get better soon? Customer service was excellent at all levels.

Played today, Saturday 9/22 with a tee time around 9 am. We tee off about 15 minutes after our scheduled tee time. POP was around 5 hours. It was a little slow on the front 9. It took about 2 hour... Continue »

Played today, Saturday 9/22 with a tee time around 9 am. We tee off about 15 minutes after our scheduled tee time. POP was around 5 hours. It was a little slow on the front 9. It took about 2 hours and 45 minutes for the front 9. Back 9 played a little faster.

Tee boxes had fairly good coverage. Tho' I found it wasn't fairly level on a lot of tee boxes. Fairways were just ok. We found so many areas on a lot of fairways with just dirt patches. It was no fun hitting from these areas. Other spots on the fairways had very thin patches of grass. The hot weather over the summer seems to have taken its toll on the fairways. I had so many shots on the fairways hitting off of dirt and sometimes mud. Sand in the bunkers were about average. Not too thin and not too thick. Greens were about average condition. We found so many so-so repaired ball marks and lumpy spots on the greens. Greens were running a little slow today.

Reason we like coming out here is the course layout is a little quirky but it makes for a fun course to play. Driving range you're hitting off of mats but it's nice that it is near the first tee. Will be back again to play when the weather if cooler .

730 tee time this morning at Santa Anita. Always have liked SA and the surrounding area. Tee boxes were a mixed bag with some with good coverage and others that had tall weeds in between the markers. ... Continue »

730 tee time this morning at Santa Anita. Always have liked SA and the surrounding area. Tee boxes were a mixed bag with some with good coverage and others that had tall weeds in between the markers. They are trying to reduce maintenance on the first 75 yards off the tees to save water. Actual fairways had good coverage, rough was another mix bag with different heights and coverage. Greens were soft and slow, no one in our group could figure out the speed during the entire round. It hindered chips and putts. Bunkers were good and POP was 4.25 hours.

Played yesterday with fellow GK'er LarryQ2001. Larry put on a golfing clinic. One of my favorite layouts to play in the area. The course has been hurt by hot temperatures. The greens were bumpy an... Continue »

Played yesterday with fellow GK'er LarryQ2001. Larry put on a golfing clinic. One of my favorite layouts to play in the area. The course has been hurt by hot temperatures. The greens were bumpy and slow running at 7.5/8. Fairways had 70% coverage with the rough being spotty with patches of dry hardpan dirt throughout. The sand traps were the highlight of the course with medium amounts of sand. The tee boxes were being mowed as we playing but needed leveling. The maintenance crew was out in full force and the improvements continue at Santa Anita. It is worth nothing that the $25 senior special with a sleeve of balls is a fantastic deal. Jeff was on his game as usual at the 19th hole. Will return for casual round because of layout and location.