This last Monday I had the opportunity to play sandpiper golf course. Our teatime was at 11:30 AM. I played with my buddy Gary, Johnny and Ron. We played from the a gold tees and had a fantastic time.... Continue »

This last Monday I had the opportunity to play sandpiper golf course. Our teatime was at 11:30 AM. I played with my buddy Gary, Johnny and Ron. We played from the a gold tees and had a fantastic time. This was my first time playing from the gold tees and it was a very tough course to play but a very enjoyable round of golf.

Here is my review of sandpiper golf course. The golf course is in excellent condition. The tees are in fantastic shape. It doesn’t matter where you want to place the your tee as you always will have a well level and balance stance. The fairways were amazing, some had too much water and when your ball landed in the fairways it was for sure that it will have mud on it. The rough was very difficult and hard to play from. There where places that it was so tough to hit the ball. On hole 16th my ball landed in the rough and when I went to hit, the tall thick grass grabbed my 6 iron and I almost hit my buddy Gary. The greens were beautiful and the ball was rolling smooth and fast. The sand bunkers need a little bit more of sand on them. Even though the golf course is hard specially playing from the gold tees, I love playing Sandpiper. It’s views on every hole are amazing!!! Love love 13 and 14 with the view over the ocean. Customer service class A. We finished our round in 4.5 hours.

Overall I rate sandpiper 8. Thank you Johnny for the invite, always a pleasure be part of these guru rounds.

Walked the Golds this morning 1/31/2022 at 1130am with buddies John, Pedro and Ron on a colder Santa Barbara day high 50s with no wind and damp conditions. The course was playing long today with beau... Continue »

Walked the Golds this morning 1/31/2022 at 1130am with buddies John, Pedro and Ron on a colder Santa Barbara day high 50s with no wind and damp conditions. The course was playing long today with beautiful lush Fairways and colder Temps. Love playing with my buddies, nothing like playing right on the Ocean with close buddies and beautiful conditions. Had not been out here in several years and really miss playing here. They have a grass range and a very sloped putting green that you can also hit pitch shots on. Friendly cart barn staff and away we went. We let a single play through on hole 2 and had a nice relaxed pace at 4 hrs 30 minutes taking our time enjoying the views.

The greens are just awesome right now!! They are super quick maybe between an 11 and 12 on the stimp at least on downhillers and sidehillers. If you are putting or chipping downhill you are toast even with a delicate touch/game. Rating the greens a solid 9/10.

Fairways are super lush for January. We all were hitting bombs with the driver today and due to the damp weather and rains that they had here the last month the course was playing long. Must really applaud the super here on the job that they are doing in the Fairways. Only 14 fairway right in the middle of the fairway was thin. Rating the Fairways a solid 8.5/10.

Greenside and fairway rough was beautiful, thick and lush. Luckily I was only in the thick stuff once on hole 5 and you just needed to hack a iron back into play if you were in this stuff. Rating the rough a solid 8/10

Tees were lush, level and beautiful. Rated 8/10

Greenside bunker I was in on 15 was raked but contained thinner sand. Saw a couple bunker shots in our group shoot out to low. The only thing I think the course needs to do would be to add some more sand in the bunkers. Rated 6.5/10.

I love the layout here...risk reward par 5s, strong dogleg holes, beautiful stretch of holes from 10-14. Ocean views..mini pebble beach

Highly recommended. We had a blast. Look forward to some more rounds here soon.

Played Sandpiper on Friday 1/21 with a 12:30 tee off, joining a twosome. In short it was excellent for this time of year. Playing from the Silver tees, no issues as to adequate coverage and level star... Continue »

Played Sandpiper on Friday 1/21 with a 12:30 tee off, joining a twosome. In short it was excellent for this time of year. Playing from the Silver tees, no issues as to adequate coverage and level start. Overall, the coverage on the fairways was pretty nice with few thin areas – perhaps a little surprisingly so. The rough here varies considerably. Some areas just a little longer than fairway and other areas you can easily lose a ball. There are some burrowing animal areas also, so definitely a mixed bag there. I was in one bunker and it was clean, firm (not hard) with the ball siting up on the surface. Like the rough, chipping and pitching areas around the green were generally good but could vary considerably at times from tight to thick growth. last time I was here many of the greens had some kind of back blight. That is long gone and the green were excellent – tight, firm with good coverage and fast. Check in was fine, the cart girl came around a few times and the young guys I was playing with were good company although maybe a touch too relaxed. They were having a little competition and while it seemed that we did little or no waiting until the back nine, people were waiting on us frequently. That said, we got around in about 4.25 hrs so the pace was actually good and it was an incremental difference. Most outstanding beyond the course itself was that it was a perfect day for it. Cloudless, in the low 70's, a light breeze to start that died to perfectly still flags in the middle of the round, picking up a bit towards the last part of the round towards sunset. Visually just a breathtaking day. Nothing to steer anyone away from it and being Sandpiper, of course it is highly recommended.

This is a long awaited review...and i'll cut right to it. THE GREENS ARE BACK!!!!!!

Played yesterday (10/19)...not a sign of the damage on any of the 18 greens. Driving range is open again too.
... Continue »

This is a long awaited review...and i'll cut right to it. THE GREENS ARE BACK!!!!!!

Played yesterday (10/19)...not a sign of the damage on any of the 18 greens. Driving range is open again too.

Not much to say in detail except this course is exactly what you'd expect. It was in great/fantastic shape all around. Greens rolled smooth and true, boxes were amazing, fairways and bunkers were lush and soft. I love this course.

Well, I finally made it to Sandpiper for the first time. Bucket list checked and it did not disappoint!

It was only about a couple of hours drive for me but well worth the visit. I arrived at 7:00... Continue »

Well, I finally made it to Sandpiper for the first time. Bucket list checked and it did not disappoint!

It was only about a couple of hours drive for me but well worth the visit. I arrived at 7:00am for our 8:00am tee time. The temperature were at mid to high 70s as we finished the round. There were occasional light breeze of 5-9 mph throughout the day along with clear sunny skies. What a treat!

Definitely a big boy course!
It isn’t that long from the mid tees, but there are some narrow fairways on short par fours. The Billy F. Bell designs a strategically placed trees and bunkers that must be avoided or even a must land and stay on the fairways or troubles await on both sides. Some of the greens are just like it and it requires precision, demanding a must hit and stay on. Obviously, I don't know the course well enough to know where the favorable landing areas are, but each after the hole is played, it reveals the do's and don'ts. Cleverly designed! Natural elevation changes are present so with all that said, I could only imagine this course would play in the wind.
The whole course is rough around the edges. One has to use an imagination to appreciate what it could be, but then I could only imagine what they would charge if they have to manicure the whole course.
The general rough alongside of the fairways are okay and not penalizing, however, some of the nearby areas around the greens and a few fairways were the thick tall fescue exist are just as brut as hell for someone unlucky enough to find them- good luck finding it there let alone try and get out of it.
The fairways were closely mowed but there were scattered unfilled divots- what a shame from those guys who would leave those divots unattended.
The bunkers were inconsistent with some of them with hard grounds under an inch of sand, others were normal and some were hardened clumps of sand/clay.
Teeing grounds were nice and lush with good coverage.
The greens have recovered very well from the chemical reactions of a problem they had experienced recently. Only the #4 green had a slight blemish and showed a slight stress but all 18 greens were very healthy with slick smooth and fast roll including #4 green with a slight discoloration which I’m sure could be gone in a week or two. Small tine holes but very few were evident in some of the greens though it never really affected the roll.
It was also a busy day and many locals on foot were on with a few small group outings in the morning.
All-in-all this is a solid track with good acceptable and playable conditions. I don’t know why I waited so long before I visited here, but I can’t wait to come back and play it again!

Our 12 player Saturday group played Sandpiper on 8/31/21. Sandpiper is one of our favorite So. Cal courses, with spectacular ocean views, great course conditions and fast greens. Unfortunately the c... Continue »

Our 12 player Saturday group played Sandpiper on 8/31/21. Sandpiper is one of our favorite So. Cal courses, with spectacular ocean views, great course conditions and fast greens. Unfortunately the course had a "Maintenance Mishap" on 13 of the 18 greens which were burnt with holes and sanded quite heavily to fill in. At first we thought the greens would be unplayable but as the day went on we became somewhat accustom to them. Some of the guys would disagree ;) Hopefully the greens will recover fast and soon because we love playing Sandpiper!! Besides the greens being under par, Sandpiper has a great staff and always friendly and courteous when we arrive. The grill has amazing food and drink. It's well worth the cost to play there!!

As stated in previous reviews, they are having trouble with their greens. They started the day before I played punching and sanding. I played on 7/15/21. Some greens I was putting through an 1/8” of s... Continue »

As stated in previous reviews, they are having trouble with their greens. They started the day before I played punching and sanding. I played on 7/15/21. Some greens I was putting through an 1/8” of sand, some the sand was dragged and watered in and some greens weren’t punched yet, but did have some ugliness to them. I hope they have cured the fungus or whatever the disease the greens have.

I hope the next thing they address once they have the greens fixed would be the bunkers. No sand just mud. Some you could rake and place to make it playable. But some had standing water in them. Possibly the standing water was because they are watering in the sand on the greens. ?????

The fairways are in great shape. I did not have a poor lie there. For the age of the course and style/location the rough is what I expected. Not really groomed or maintained. Some of it you will not find your ball.

The views on the backside are spectacular. So if you play here, enjoy the views and hope at least the greens have bounced back.

I had the opportunity to play Sandpiper for the first time on July 10. I teed off at 8:10am. Beautiful partly sunny day. The POP was 4:30. Over all conditions were great until we got to the 4th gr... Continue »

I had the opportunity to play Sandpiper for the first time on July 10. I teed off at 8:10am. Beautiful partly sunny day. The POP was 4:30. Over all conditions were great until we got to the 4th green. As mentioned in the previous review of this course, the greens have some issues. Seems like it has gotten worse this past week. All of the greens close to the ocean had extensive bare spots. The explanation for the damage was that incorrect chemicals were applied to the greens. Other than the greens, all other playing conditions were good. I really enjoyed the layout of this course. Looking forward to playing it again with nice greens.

Played with my buddy visiting from NY plus a single, first off twilight at 2:00 on 7/1. There are a number of positive recent reviews and descriptions lately so I won't go into great detail on them he... Continue »

Played with my buddy visiting from NY plus a single, first off twilight at 2:00 on 7/1. There are a number of positive recent reviews and descriptions lately so I won't go into great detail on them here. Conditions overall were very nice from tees up to the greens. Bunkers were OK if a little unkempt and pitching/chipping areas were good. The greens were worth special mention because many of them had splotchy brown areas. I couldn't figure out if it was a form of fungus, or random areas of fertilizer that had been compressed into the surface. It wasn't attractive, a little disconcerting, and while it didn't seem to affect the putts overly much these areas seemed more sparse as to coverage and a touch bumpy. The worst case was the par-3 fourth hole where I had a long putt across the green on which the brown areas were predominant and I wasn't sure how my putt would react to the surface. Otherwise the green were pretty quick and playable in the bigger picture. I wouldn't avoid the course because of the mottling on the greens, but I think it helps to be aware and anticipate it. All in all, a beautiful, challenging and occasionally dramatic course. We all enjoyed it as a special outing. The small range area is open to those with tee times and the putting/chippig green has holes but no flags. The pro shop operates from an exterior setup and you can't go in. They will fetch it from within if you need something. The restaurant is open to purchase and sit outside to eat. There may have been some inside seating but I honestly don't recall. Outside was preferable anyway.