Ah, the joy, the frustration, the anxiety of looking for a reasonable morning tee time in SoCal these days. Was trying to set up a GK Cup match and scratched up a 1020 tee time on Wednesday, 12/15/21,... Continue »

Ah, the joy, the frustration, the anxiety of looking for a reasonable morning tee time in SoCal these days. Was trying to set up a GK Cup match and scratched up a 1020 tee time on Wednesday, 12/15/21, at Westridge GC. Golfnow had me prepay and then my opponent had a medical issue, but I rustled up a high school buddy and we headed for the hills of La Habra. It had rained buckets the day before, but I was hopeful ………. OK, so gigantic withdrawal shock for course conditions after having enjoyed Ram’s Hill GC a few days earlier! Westrige is built on the side of a hill, but apparently doesn’t drain that well, and the course was completely “path-only” – not the best for my bum knee! The guy in the shop was nice enough to contact the course superintendent directly to get dispensation, but no dice! Meathead Dave decided to go ahead anyway and I’m paying the price on Thursday with a cold pack strapped on the knee! Plenty of up-and-down hiking to and from the ball, and even from cart path to some tees and greens. It had been ~20 years since I last played here, and the course reminds me of Coyote Hills or Bella Colina. For a course this age, I definitely expected better conditions – established drainage patterns, a solid turf base, etc. Greens were the best part of the course, with good coverage and rolling at medium+ speed. Speeds were consistent through the round. Greens were fairly firm and receptive to shots. Fairways were extremely disappointing, with thin or bare areas outpacing grassy lies. Hitting to the middle of the fairway more often than not resulted in a lie on wet sand with random sprigs of grass. Only occasionally were you treated to a lie on grass. The fairways also exhibited a lot of debris that apparently flowed out across the course after the rain. Hole #6 was especially bad. Fairways and rough closer to greens had better turf in most cases. Tees (we played the Blue tees [5,902/70.4/130]) were generally OK. A few of the traps had recently been refurbished with new white sand, but the majority had a brown sand. All were wet and hard-packed and none had been raked, with a few with standing water in them. We basically played “drop outside”. Carts were just basic – no cooler, club cleaner, USB, or GPS. No yardage book available. The course has red/white/blue yardage stakes and fairway plates, and some sprinkler heads are marked. Hole drawings on the tee monuments are badly faded and not very helpful for infrequent or new players. Cart paths are starting to need attention to save patrons’ teeth. Basic restrooms after #4 and #15. Most holes are built on a descending series of benches along the hillside, separated by natural areas generally marked as ESA. There is even some in-course OB between parallel holes, which is very unusual – I assume the objective is to discourage players from venturing onto other fairways searching for their ball. There are marked “Drop Areas” near these OB markers – I assume to allow players to drop and keep the pace moving. Again, unusual, and nothing that was noticed by the scorecard or starter. Staff was friendly all around and graciously agree to give us a shuttle lift back to the parking lot afterward, saving us about 40 vertical steps after the round. As noted before, the shop guy worked to get me a waiver on the cart restriction. We came across a staff member walking the greens and fixing pitch marks with a special tool. He says he does this 4 hr/day, 5 days a week. Eureka! Do other courses do this? He also said other employees are devoted to filling divots around the course. Now we’re getting somewhere! (I did notice that many divots around the course appeared to have been recently filled.) I’m hopeful that this type of staff work is common around SoCal, even though I think this is the first time I’ve ever seen anyone doing this! Given the state of conditions, I can’t recommend the course at this time.