Playing on a garbage course

[TheNatural]

I play from time to time on a garbage course. I will not play anymore. The course causes me stop focusing mostly because the course is in such bad shape. The greens will have tire burn marks on them, the tee boxes half mud, the fairways have swaths of mud, the rough is no better than my lawn. but sometimes the price is so low and its not crowded.

Dos anybody here have an issue where they may find the conditions to be so unprofessional that it makes you just stop keeping score or stop trying to focus on shots?


I play better on higher grade and slope courses than this POS. much better. These courses tend to be in muchmuch better shape.

[jojoampt]

HAHAHAH! Sounds exactly like the course im a member at! Seriously. I live kind of in bumf**k so there arent really any options at all, and the course is seriously a 3 minute car ride from my house. You gotta take what you can get; but if there were any other options id be outta there in a second. I should take some pics of the greens and tee boxes and post em up. You guys would be absolutely appalled! Sometimes there is literally sections of the green where there IS NO GRASS! Seriously, itll just be dirt or mud depending on the weather. On some of the tee boxes it is literally hard to even find a piece of grass to tee off from. The fairways are mud in the winter and super super hard pack in the summer. *sigh*

[David in FL]

Leave the goat tracks to the goats.

Life is too short to play on cruddy golf courses, unless there simply aren't any other options available. Give your hard earned money to those that work equally hard to earn it.

[jojoampt]

Agreed. Unfortunately, this is the best option I have.

[Golfaway]

Hahhahaha!
Sounds exactly like the course where I play. But it's the only option I have, and I don't pay a dime to play, so it's OK!

[Iowa Hawkeye]

Sounds like my HS course, but it has been getting exponentially better each of the last 3 years. I went back today for the first time this season and it is looking very respectable, the only things left looking bad are the OB and under construction areas. From the rough in, tee to green it is up with most publics in my area now, even the bunkers have soft playable sand instead of dirt

[Chief Broom]

Golf is golf. Bad conditions prepare you far better than playing every shot from a perfect lie. Why do you think the pros go out of their way to worsen their lie during practice? Even the best courses give you bad lies, especially if you shots aren't perfect (and whose are).

[TheNatural]

Golf is golf. Bad conditions prepare you far better than playing every shot from a perfect lie. Why do you think the pros go out of their way to worsen their lie during practice? Even the best courses give you bad lies, especially if you shots aren't perfect (and whose are).

Well this course was being aerated to boot. If thats what you call it. Meaning the aeration machine striped a swath on several holes a foot wide...not just the plugs it stripped the entire carpet a foot wide in places and 30 feet long...so they filled it with sand! On the green! Ive played aerated holes before and it can be tough but if the aeration is done properly, the Gkeeper will use fine white sand, not beach sand which is what these jokers used. A rolling putt will pick up a belt of sand around the orbit of the ball and decided to turn on one axis or another thus changing direction break etc.... every putt was a ball cleaning experience. I stopped cleaning after putts and cleaned when teeing off not to damage driver face. $21 to walk what can you expect. The normal rates for cart are 40 which imo is a ripoff.

[Cody]

$21 to walk what can you expect. The normal rates for cart are 40 which imo is a ripoff.

Woah woah, a course THAT BAD is $21 TO WALK!? If i go twilight at my course its only 20, and its $42 for 18 riding and $30 for twilight riding(as many as holes as you can get in starting at like 4 until 8ish).

The course is beautiful. Very well manacured, beautiful placement. Its one of the best looking courses in my area and its pretty cheap. I'd say its a god send if youre playing 40 riding at a course like that! Also they recently aerated, and the greens were difficult(if you caught a partially filled hole youd take a bounce and lose speed), but its fine now.

[wedge player]

HAHAHAH! Sounds exactly like the course im a member at! Seriously. I live kind of in bumf**k so there arent really any options at all, and the course is seriously a 3 minute car ride from my house. You gotta take what you can get; but if there were any other options id be outta there in a second. I should take some pics of the greens and tee boxes and post em up. You guys would be absolutely appalled!

sounds exactly like one i know and play

my favorite is the patches of clovers on the greens

[wedge player]

$21 to walk what can you expect. The normal rates for cart are 40 which imo is a ripoff.

the one i mentioned is 20 for a cart and 18 holes

[Dub]

Leave the goat tracks to the goats.

Well said!!!!

[MiniMoe]

I actually don't mind playing on a crappy course once in a while. I take all expectations away from my game and just have fun. I try all kinds of weird shots... stuff I would normally never try. I take lots of beer and put the good golf balls back in the bag and play the el'chipos. It actually helps my game when I return to a "real" course. So have fun, learn new shots and get drunk. It sounds like a good day to me.

[microcrayfish]

I've never played on a few pretty poor courses but usually they're dirt cheap ranging from $8-10, though there's also some really nice courses around for that price too so I don't have to go to the poorer ones that often. You can approach a "garbage" course in two ways, get pissed off about all the bad lies and poor greens and blame them for your poor play letting it all build up until you completely ruin your day, or, just take it for what it is, enjoy yourself and use it as an opportunity to try out things that you wouldn't usually do because in all likely hood you're not going to be shooting low.

[Fourputt]

I'll pretty much play anytime, anyplace. I'm not stupid... I certainly prefer a well maintained course, but I'm not always so willing to pay the price required to play such a course all the time. That's not saying that my home course is total loss.... it's well maintained for the funding available, but it can't keep up with a course which charges a higher premium to play.

Maybe some of you either don't play as often as I do (100+ rounds per year), or you have unlimited funds, but I play most of my golf on a public course where I also work part time to minimize the costs. That allows me a few trips each year to better courses, and I probably appreciate those outings more than those players for whom a perfectly groomed course is standard.

The way I look at it, the game was invented by shepherds knocking stones into rabbit holes in a a sheep pasture. The worst course I ever played is better than that.

[muggs]

I do. I'm remodeling my basement, have a mortgage, and I'm still paying off an engagement ring...so the muni track right across the street from my house that charges $13 to walk 18 during their twilight special see's a lot of me. It's next to a small local airport, so it's flat with terrible drainage. The greens are burnt out by June, and they're actually doing a lot of upgrades (should be nice in a few more years) so about 1/2 the fairways have dirt lines where they've dug and placed drainage pipes. I can walk 9 for $9 any time I want though and it's about 1/2 mile away from my front door- I can't beat that access and it's good practice.

I'm actually lucking enough to have a few really nice muni tracks in my area too, both used to be private at one point. It's $32 to walk 9 there though, and $20 during twilight. So I only play that once a month.

A good course in my area costs about $80 to ride 18.

[Chief Broom]

Well said!!!!

This just gets back to how much one has budgeted for golf. My budget is pretty lean so that means I play nicer tracks only on special occassions. Say once a month or so. I certainly love to play a well maintained course, but budget constraints are more important to me, so I make concessions. My current plan is to stay with the muni I'm a member of for the next couple of years. If my son sticks with golf (he's playing on his middle school team) I'll get us a family membership at a nicer course (I'm thinking "Forest Hills" because it fits the bill as a better maintained course with a challenging layout that is conveniently located for me and in my price range). That will cost me more out of pocket than what I'm currently paying but with the two of us playing regularly it'll start to make better financial sense.

[DaveLeeNC]

I learned to play golf on a course with NO watering system at all (SE Missouri where it does often get very dry in the summer). The greens were sand greens (yes - sand greens), the rough was mowed for hay 2x per year (generous width fairways fortunately), and if you hit a 5i in August landing 2 yards pin high left of the green, your next shot was quite likely from 40+ yards behind the green.

I now am a member at a pretty darn nice place. But I remember where I came from and have never encountered a golf course that I did not enjoy.

See http://tinyurl.com/d8j62t


dave