I played Balboa Sunday afternoon on June 16. I paid the resident rate of $24 for twilight. This used to be my go to course whenever I was looking for a walk on round but it has been awhile since I l... Continue »

I played Balboa Sunday afternoon on June 16. I paid the resident rate of $24 for twilight. This used to be my go to course whenever I was looking for a walk on round but it has been awhile since I last played here. The course has a decent sized practice putting green, a small chipping area, and mat driving range. Overall, the conditions were very good although there was some noticeable wear likely from all the play earlier in the day. There were also some small signs of dead grass on some of the greens.
There have been a number of improvements on the course since my last visit, including the current renovations to the short par 3, no. 13; they are lengthening the back tee and redoing all of the front ones. It looks like the back tees will be adjacent to the no. 12 green......may need a hard hat in the future when teeing off 13. Unfortunately, they have transformed no. 12 from a par 4 to a par 3 during this renovation. There is a temporary tee box that sits about 150 yards out.....we played from the original closed tee anyways. ;p No. 13 has a temporary tee box as well and it is pretty much a driving range mat....thumbs down. However, the temporary direction into the hole is kind of neat. I also noticed that they cleared out all of the brush, old fencing, palm trees, and ice plant behind the diabolical par 5, hole 16 and around the tee on hole 17. They also added a cart path on hole 17.
I walked the course and it always proves to be a decent workout with the many elevation changes on the course. The layout is a combination of interesting, penalizing, sprinkled with a few ho hum holes (boring). For newcomers to the course, some holes can seem terribly unforgiving. Also, it's a typical muni so don't expect any over the top customer service. OK, so now back to the course conditions. Greens were pretty good and rolled well. Fairways and rough were lush and very good. The tee boxes were OK with some tees having some divot damage and not entirely level. I'll be back for sure.....recommended.