I finally got around to playing this "Classic" courtesy of a Griffith Park Golf Tournament. Many holes have on one side water and on the other, bunkers, placing a premium on tee shots. The trees are numerous but relatively sparse. Number 12 is a 160 yarder that when the pin is in the front could be the hardest tee shot under 175 yards in Southern California. I really want to play here again. I was distracted by one in our foursome who was utterly clueless about playing ready golf. I complained to the tournament committee. Conditions are great. No elaboration needed there. Like Beethoven, Leonardo da Vinci, or a William Shakespeare this course is a classic.

Played today. Not much to add to my previous post as well as T8Fish. But the greens have healed nicely and will hold shots, release shots and putt with good speed. And as always great customer service in the shop and from other employees as well. Still the best value golf in the valley. Troon manages Alhambra and is now in charge of Bella Vista/Montebello and they are taking over Brookside in June. They are making a run-on American golf and I think that is a good thing.

Played the Dam last Sat 5/4, 8:20 start. I've been playing Hansen for 30+ years & it's in pretty good condition now (as are most courses after the rainy winter.) For those that haven't played it, there is a range, hitting down into a valley/dip from mats. Good for warm up, not so for dialing yardage in on clubs. They have decent putting & chipping areas. Restaurant opens at 8*am on weekends. I didn't go in this time. They have full bar, NO BEV CART on course. After 9th you do pass the restaurant. On to course conditions;

Tee boxes are fair, usually a flat area can be found with good grass coverage.

Fairways are in great muni condition, as good as they get. A pleasure to hit from.

Greens are ok. They were punched a month ago & haven't healed as well as most would. Hansen Dam has always had an issue with the Greens healing slowly. No idea why. Still cleaning sand off balls, but the ball rolled ok, if you hit it. Speed SLOW.

Collar areas are shaved back from the greens up to 10 yards giving the option to putt from off the green if desired. Near perfect condition.

The Rough is mostly good, can get into some weedy bunch grass in some areas, but mostly 3-4" cut, penal but not killer.

POP was 4H 35. Slow front, picked up nicely on the back. No Marshalls at LA City course.
Starter was friendly, they do require ID now (fallout from Bot Res disaster?)
Carts are near new. They have GPS & Bluetooth speakers. Comfy seats.

Overall I recommend. I'll be back in a few weeks before the real heat of summer. Enjoy it.

This is a bit overdue as I also played in the GolfMoose/GK outing a week ago Monday. The course was in great condition and I really enjoyed my round here, despite loosing three points in my GK Cup match with mpisarski. There's not much to add to the previous review as everything was pretty much covered. Pace of play was good enough for an event of this type. The greens rolled slower than I had anticipated. Fast enough, but they could trick it out with a tighter cut; best not to do that on a public play day.

The course is definitely tricky enough with some knowledge of the landing areas. Poor tee shots will be certain death to your score. Knowing where to lay up is equally important.


The tees could have been mowed as they were on the shaggy side. The snack bar was not prepared for business during the round as they had one employee and service was slow.

All in all, it was a great day with lots of beautiful sunshine and great company.

Many thanks to The Oaks Club Valencia, JohnnyGK, Golf Moose, and Vivid Golf.

From 4/29/24

The Oaks at Valencia is a well-designed golf course that offers a variety of golf holes that are fun, interesting, and challenging. The course is built onto a scenic mountainside that features views of localized mountains and housing. This gorgeous course features large mature trees, strategic bunkering throughout, large waste areas, and several elevation changes. Be ready to hit up and down hills when playing here!


The Oaks places premium on accuracy off the tee as you are hitting into narrow to mid-sized fairways, and into small to medium greens from the fairway or on par 3s. The course defends itself with specified landing areas off the tee, well positioned bunkers, medium length rough, and fast sloped greens. There were a few doglegs and some blind shots with significant elevation changes. This course always requires the execution of quality golf shots, as being offline here introduces difficulty to achieve recovery, as there are hazards or OB on every hole. The course played slightly longer than its yardage, and fairways provided limited to medium roll out on drives and approaches with wind speeds between 10 mph to 20 mph on this day.


The course is very well maintained and in overall very good condition. The course layout is rated a 4.1 out of 5, conditions are rated a 4.4 out of 5.

I note that 16 of 18 holes are rated 4.4 or better for layout, however, the two par 5s on the back nine are a bit interesting in a not so good way due to odd elevation changes, blind shot requirements to odd landing areas that include unconventional green locations. This would be OK for one par 5, but not for both par 5s on the back nine. These two holes are the primary reason the layout rating is down to a 4.1. Thank goodness the remainder of the course is pretty awesome!


I note the following:

Tee Boxes: Level and green, no damage. Condition very good.

Fairways: Green, lush, and defined from rough. Grabby with limited rollout. Condition very good.

Greens: Green, medium-fast in speed, on the medium to firm side, and tricky to read at times. Speed about a 11. Condition very good.

Sand: Maintained with heavy consistency. Condition above average.

Rough: Maintained and defined, about 3 – 5 inches. Condition very good.

Waste Areas: Maintained with overgrown nature that offered little to no recovery potential. Condition very good.

Driving Range: Incredible driving range! You are hitting off an artificial turf surface down into a valley with an incredible mountain backdrop. This range was as good as it gets for the location and ran out at over 320 yards. I noted classic yellow range balls that flew well and were in very good condition. Love the Driving Range experience here!

Practice Area: Chipping area present was very nice, and the large putting green was in great shape and perfectly set. Conditions excellent on both. Speed of the practice putting green was consistent with the course's greens.

POP: 4.75 hours – very limited wait was encountered. We paced ourselves accordingly.

Other: Noted a nice golf shop, high grade.


This is a great golf course without a doubt, that requires a solid golf game to score. I loved this track and hope to be able to play it again in the future. Fully Endorsed!

Thank you Johnny and GreensKeeper.org, Golf Moose, and Vivid Golf for this Awesome Outing!

Ok so first time playing here so I don’t have a baseline to see if this is better than normal, but it’s in great shape except for one thing. 90% of the bunkers are terrible. The ones that aren’t small lakes look like they’ve never seen a rake. POP was terrible in my opinion. Played on a Monday and waited on every shot. 5 hours is way too long for this course. Never saw a Marshall the whole day.

Ok now for the good stuff,
Tee boxes pretty level, but grass was thin at times.

Fairways were in great shape and lush. Didn’t see any drown spots or severe divot damage some spots were a little soft.

Greens looked and rolled great with very few divot damage and they rolled very fast (which I prefer). Hole 13 though needs something done, if the pin is left of center and you are above the hole it will not stay on the green. Just a bit unfair.

Rough was good, they were mowing it while we were playing, so I can image it’s deeper on the weekends but was still playable.

Overall nice track with elevation changes and if the wind picks up it can get tricky. If you’re a long hitter some hole will play a little short but putting in play is a must as the oaks trees and doglegs place a premium on putting the ball on the proper side of the fairway. All in all I’ll be back and would recommend this course for golfers of most skill levels.

Weekend round with Mattias at Rec Park and found the course to be in pretty good shape overall. The weather was not as nice as hoped for but luckily the course conditions were good enough to overcome that.

We had a 1:20pm tee time and played from the blue tees. Ordered online with carts late but we both walked and were happy with the starter who gave us the walking rate and didn't lock us in to the cart rate - well done. Driving range is pretty odd but functional. Very old mats and balls.

Fairways were in good shape with the occasional thin areas out and about. The rough was not thick enough to be penal but there are a few areas to get in trouble here. Bunkers were pretty thin and didn't look too great, while the tee boxes were mostly okay - flat and level. Greens were running very inconsistently from hole to hole but in good shape in terms of coverage. There are few tricky greens here but most are pretty manageable. Lines and shots held pretty well but again, inconsistent speeds made them more difficult than they should be.

We had cart service come around a few times which was great, but the POP started off amazing as we never waited on a single hole until the par 4 6th where everything came to a grinding halt and we were two groups behind. This lasted throughout much of the rest of the round which was disappointing after such a nice start. Ultimately we played in just under five hours.

Rec Park is certainly the most 'Muni' of all the Long Beach courses but it's still fun on its day and I would give it a recommendation right now.

Played today @8am, I was happy to hear that it had recently re-opened so was wanting to get out before the crowds started booking. Nice POP with no just had to wait on tee for 5 mins for the threesome to clear but after that was smooth sailing. As others have said, price is a little steep for a 9 hole but I’d play again just not rush to go back. They kept 8 original holes from the course and I had to figure out which hole was which for yardage since no golf app has the new layout

Based on an old layout where the front 9 (first tee) was along the hotel. From there I was able to track it. So for those that are wanting to play and still waiting for apps to be updated. Here’s the layout and you can use the yardage from “The Grint” app.

New Old
#1 #17
#2 #18
#3 #1
#4 #15
#5 #14
#6 #2
#7 #13
#8 #12
#9(new hole not existent in old course)cut trees down and uses 11th hole green. It’s a par 3 so go based on yardage sign.

Overall not bad but like I said if I wanted to play a quick round on a good layout I’d come back but not rushing.

First review now that TopGolf took over. Too far away for me to usually play, but I had to take my daughter to a book convention in Santa Monica, so I had a few hours and tried out the new Lakes at El Segundo, adjacent to the new TopGolf. TopGolf owns it, and the entire complex has been redone to match TopGolf.

I will say, it far exceeded my expectations. It is a small Par 3 course with 10 holes. The longest hole plays 150, and most are in the 80-110 range.

I expected that due to the location, the course would get tons of play, and also lots of beginners. True and true. It was packed, and probably half of the players I saw had not likely been to a course more than a couple of times.

What I didn't expect was a course in great condition. Greens were great. Rolled very smooth, a hair on the slow side. And shockingly, they were not covered in ballmarks. Even though all these 100 yard holes probably get pounded daily, I would only find 3 or 4 marks to fix on each green.

Not much to say about fairways and rough for a Par 3 course, but everything else was fine. Bunkers looked nice, but I didn't get in any.

Although we were 20 minutes late starting, the marshall quickly saw a slow group on #2 and talked them into playing a scramble to move it along. And that worked, things moved great after that, and we were done in 1:20.

TopGolf itself looks fun - not really my thing though. TLAES though is a fun way to practice your wedge game and putting. Really nice putting green and chipping area as well.

I played 5/3 with a 2:30 start, the day after 24hourgolf so I'm just going to add a couple of comments to his review. Pretty much in agreement with his take, the only exception being the greens. A day can make a difference and since he played AM and I played PM, I think the better part of two days did. I didn't find the greens soft. And while they can get quicker here, they were running at what I consider a nice reasonably quick pace. I assume the pace will be increasing with time. Bottom line, the course is in nice shape right now.

A side note on service: it's consistently good here — pleasant and well organized. When I was paying up with Julius, I asked for a hand cart and he threw it in at no cost. Seems like a small thing but I appreciated the unexpected gesture and felt appreciated as a customer.

Played today May 3 for the courses' grand reopening. Kinda expensive to play, but the conditions are EXCELLENT right now. The tee boxes are nice and flat with nice grass, fairways and 2nd cut are perfect, bunkers have nice soft sand and the greens rolled slow, but true. PAR 35, Blues 3100, Whites 2900 and Reds 2600 yards. Our 4some teed off at 2:30 and finished at 4:15.

Opened today. 9-hole course and 6-hole par 3. The par 3 will be lighted at night. The 9 holes are 8 original holes from below the hotel and a new finishing par 3 9-hole. Blue 3100 white 2900 red 2600. The par 3 is 460 yards and they made the old #10 an island green on the par 3. The 9 holes are in nice shape from tee box to green. You can check the website for prices which IMO are too high as they don't include a cart fee. For an early AM 9 before work walking or a twilight 9 after work walking seems the best value. You can buy a Sr card for $50 which gives 20% off which seems like a lot to me. Building new clubhouse across the street from Top Golf. Temporary building there at present. No driving range or putting green and old clubhouse is not in use. It's definitely a nice 9-hole course but IMO overpriced. If you want to play another 9 to make 18 you have to pay a reduced rate for that. To crowded and busy to take pictures but check the website for the gallery of pictures. Two former Alhambra employees Jonathan is the GM Luke is the assistant. Good customer service. BTW they charge a 3/% for CC charges. And last but not least real sand in the bunkers finally.