Unfortunately the member-guest tournament I was supposed to play in yesterday at Yorba Linda CC was canceled due to the high winds, but a group of six of us decided to brave the tempest and played a s... Continue »

Unfortunately the member-guest tournament I was supposed to play in yesterday at Yorba Linda CC was canceled due to the high winds, but a group of six of us decided to brave the tempest and played a six-man scramble tournament instead since we'd all gone through the trouble of driving down there.

While the wind was definitely an ever-present factor all day, and we had some significant gusts that wreaked havoc with balls on the greens, it wasn't so bad that they should have canceled the tournament, but of course they were protecting their interests. It's fine. We had a great time anyway and even won the most skins.

The course itself is very fun with tight fairways being the rule rather than the exception, and a lot of significant but not overwhelming elevation shifts between the holes. Very few are simply flat so you always have to adjust shots, but with the high winds that was always going to be the case no matter what. There's only one par 5 on the front nine so it's a par 71, but it's a pretty nice and fun variety of par 4s throughout, while all the par 3s are long and dangerous, with the exception of the short, uphill 17th. But yeah, very fun layout.

Course conditions are quite good as one would expect. They recently re-seeded so the greens were running really great (when the wind wasn't acting up) but very challenging to keep shots on them without the right trajectory, especially with the elevated greens. Teeboxes were in perfect shape, while the bunkers were thin but mostly due to the winds taking off the top layers - they should be fine when things calm down again. Rough was very thick but mostly playable when not deep in autumn leaves. Did I mention there are trees everywhere lining just about every hole on the course?

We didn't get the full compliment of amenities as the course was for all intents and purposes 'closed' with only a handful of players out there ... having a great course all to yourselves is really the coolest experience regardless the conditions. But overall the staff was great, we had a nice time in the men's dining area afterwards with drinks and appetizers and I can't wait to play the course for real when the rescheduled event takes place in the near future.