Your Favorite NorCal Courses

I didn't get any responses in the last course thread :( , but I am still very interested in hearing about some other great NorCal courses!! As I said before, I play pretty much exclusively in the Santa Cruz area, but I hear about a lot of great courses in San Jose, Livermore, and elsewhere not too far from me.

What are some really great courses in your part of NorCal?

What are the best value courses you play, say less than $50 or what you consider a steal??

For me, if you're in my neck of the woods I'm sure most of you know how great Bayonet/Blackhorse is. With golfnow, it especially follows as a great value.

My homecourse is an Aptos, Seascape Golf , and I do think it's the best value around here. You can get on with a cart for less than $40 pretty much anytime of the year. From the tips, plays 70.1/130 at a hair over 6000 yards. It's well-kept, and weaves through the Rio Del Mar neighborhood of Aptos with a few nice ocean views in the distance. Lots of houses line the course, but are broken up by some nice treelines. It's a fair course with a few tough holes and usually some wind and/or pockets of fog that rolls in and out(especially in the Summer) to deal with.

What are your favorites???

Further up north is one of the best values in the bay area, namely my home course Roddy Ranch.

http://www.roddyranch.com/

I also like Rancho Solano/Paradise Valley

A little beyond the $50 price is Hiddenbrooke

One thing I'm sure your aware of is we have not seen any rain for some time and some courses are not doing too well so try and find out how well the course is holding up to the drought conditions we are having.

Shadow Lakes is ok and Deer Ridge is even better in fact I really like DR even though it's a bit shorter it has more scenic holes than Shadow and both of those fit the price range.

I need to get out more often, there are just so many choices out here and I doubt I have set foot on even half of them, this is what happens when you get a membership, you just can't justify spending any more money on golf when you have unlimited at home.

To the OP: I got to play Seascape a few times about two years ago.  Fun course and more forgiving than it looks - so many holes run down valleys, so the hillsides can often help push wayward balls back towards the fairway. That was a bonus for me!

In terms of sub-$50 faves, I really like the front 9 at Shoreline.  Every hole has a different feel.  The back nine?  Well, three or four holes are a bit repetitive, but overall, I think it's a good deal and a fun course.

I also absolutely love Lake Chabot and Tilden simply because of how hilly they are (also: both are relatively short - which is another bonus for me).  I *always* play Lake Chabot when I'm in Oakland (visiting family). I think that course is under-rated.

...so, overall, my 'fave' is Lake Chabot, but I've only played a handful of Bay Area courses.

I love those hillsides! Hole 10 is particularly fun. Par 5, tight fairway, but you're basically shooting into a valley, and even sort of big misses end up funneling back near the fairway. You can really let it rip with your tee shot. Glad you enjoyed Seascape. It's such a peaceful and fun round of golf, especially in the afternoon.

My father-in-law loves Tilden. I will have to get out there!

I have seen Roddy Ranch on the other NorCal thread. It looks like a beautiful course, and I definitely will be playing it soon--I don't think it's too much of a drive from Santa Cruz.

The courses out here have been taking the drought pretty well. It's been great to be able to play in shorts and a polo, but the lack of rain is getting pretty ridiculous.

Well if you do want to play Roddy during the week let me know, Tilden can be nice if you play during the week and get a morning time otherwise it's 5 hours +, I'm sorry but Lake Chabot did not impress me much at all, the people that work there were not the most professional and the course was just blah for the location, there were a couple interesting holes but it just didn't do much for me, Oakland is not really known for it's golf, now head out north into Napa Valley and other northern counties you got some very nice choices and east contra costa where I live has a few nice places to play south of me in Livermore Wente and Poppy , and then San Jose I hear has some good places like Coyote (Nicklaus design 36 holes). Though if you like shorter courses with scenic views Lincoln park on the most north west tip of SF is lots of fun just getting there is a bear.

Growing up in the Central Valley, Livermore was always just a place to drive through on the way to San Francisco and home to Livermore Labs. It seems as though there is a lot of good golf (and restaurants and other stuff!) out there, though.

And just on que, Roddy $24 offer on golfnow.....

My brother-in-law played Coyote Creek back in October, on the Saturday in October where there was a random downpour in what seemed like all of northern California. He still loved it and wants to go back, so hopefully that gets checked off my list year as well.

Play with a member $20.00 M-F