Played on Saturday morning, 8/4/18, at 0830 with my monthly club – we play here every August. Weather was hot and humid, and we didn’t get much breeze to take the edge off the heat until the latter po... Continue »

Played on Saturday morning, 8/4/18, at 0830 with my monthly club – we play here every August. Weather was hot and humid, and we didn’t get much breeze to take the edge off the heat until the latter portion of the back nine. 5-hr pace, behind slow groups of drinkers/music players didn’t help.

I’m not sure how hot it’s been in Chino lately, but the course is in struggling condition. At this time of the morning everything was very wet from overnight irrigation. Many mushy areas in the fairways. Fairway areas pretty soft and you don’t get a lot of runout on drives. Greens very damp/soft, to the point of badly showing footprints and spike marks on the front nine – putts were bobbing and weaving on the way to the hole.

Overall greens had good coverage and rolled at medium speed. They were bumpy early on from the footprints, but conditions on the back nine were better as the greens dried out and firmed up a little. Fairway and rough coverage was very spotty – you could have a great fairway lie feet away from a bare area – there were large bare areas in fairways and rough scattered throughout the course. Many tees were unlevel and/or spongy from thick, wet turf. Sand we encountered was generally good.

The GPS system discussed on the GK board was deployed on our carts. No info from the shop on options or use, so it just sat there during the round. Lots of ads and news – only one line with hole info (hole #, par, distance). Yardage was stated as “to the pin” but several checks indicated that the yardage was to the center, so user be aware.

No cart girl – there’s a snack shack on the 7th/16th tee. Water fountain between #12/13 was not working. The group in front of us was two holes behind on the 10th tee, after going in after #9 to get drinks. We asked the starter to help move them along, and he sent a marshal out to talk to us – marshal said he would ‘monitor’ the group. Not sure what this means, as after he drove up to check their situation he was seen driving back to the clubhouse – must be ‘remote monitoring’? Maybe he was using a drone?

Same marshal drove into our group while we were hitting our approaches on #1, then gave me crap when I mentioned this to him. New management group must be trying out a new customer service model.

I like the course but conditions are very rough right now.