I haven't played a course new to me in quite some time, and while this is not in the general…read moredirection I go for golf (friends live in the other direction) a buddy of mine did get a couple of Group Golfer coupons to push me over here.
First the good: The greens were in very good condition. Rolled at a decent consistent pace, and were smooth. Not much more you can ask! Just a head's up, the greens at Beacon Hill is smaller than average, and if you short side yourself, it's a tough up and down. Condition wise the course was in good shape (except for the cart paths, more on that later)
Staff was friendly: Guy inside gave me a key to our cart before my buddy got there, and we had a good chat with the starter before our tee time.
It was cheap with the Group Golfer coupon, only $31, vs the regular $51 which is currently showing on their website for mid-summer rate.
The Bad:
I knew ahead of time it was going to be a slow round. When they can't keep their tee times, and are already missing them before noon, that means they have tee times packed too closely together. Sure enough, checking their website, and they have 8 minute tee times. We teed off about 10 minutes late from the expected time, and total play time was 4:54. Man that's a long day. Course managers are so short sighted. 5 hour rounds drive people away. The short term increase in revenue is lost over repeat business, not to mention if we had finished 30-40 minutes earlier we would have hit the bar for some dinner and drinks after the round, but instead we both had to get home.
The layout is, let's say, interesting. Two main issues with the layout Beacon Hill:
One is that course is totally overgrown with trees. Someone needs to come here with a chainsaw and trim or cut down trees on nearly every single hole (and get rid of that ridiculous tree in the middle of the short par 3).
Second, far too many blind shots. Many times we'd have to drive up to see where we were going (and to make sure the group in front was out of the way). Even with GPS it wasn't clear. Blind shots stink. They slow you down when figuring out where you're going, and they slow you down when trying to find your ball. A couple of approach shots are kinda silly (eg #16, impossible to stop the ball on the green, for instance).
Third issue, tee markers. My buddy and I are experienced golfers, and absolutely hate it when they fudge their numbers and don't put the tee markers where the card says they should go. We pick specific tees for a reason. We played the "blue" tees, but they were moved up to the white tees on probably 13 or 14 of the holes (and whites were moved to golds). That also screws up the course rating/slope because they are rated for a specific set of tees. Some of us care about our handicap and having accurate info posted. If you want to move them up, fine, but change the cards to reflect accurate information so players can make informed decisions.
Fourth issue: Cart paths. I don't know the history of this course, or the future of it. For all I know, they might be bulldozing this for more housing next year. But man, the cart paths are absolutely brutal. Shake your fillings right out.
The more good: I asked the starter if they had a 2-some they could pair us with. He said no, but on the 2nd hole (par 3, lol), a couple of guys came up and were part of a 5-some which they broke into a 2 and 3, and we asked them if they'd like to join us, and they did. Really enjoyable couple of old dudes (in their early and late 70s) who could really play!
That really made the long day enjoyable in the end.
Conclusion:
As you can see, the bad outweighs the good by a large margin. Oh yeah, they don't have a driving range to warm up, either. I'm sorry, but I wouldn't come back without a cheap group golfer, and even then, there are soooo many options within an hour of my house that I don't think I would come back here again anyway.
Trim the trees, fix the paths, and space out your tee times by 1.5 minutes, and some of the layout issues can be forgiven.
