I played in the AM/AM at Rattlesnake, as well. We were DFL in the scratch division 
Matt seems like a really good guy, and like I said, I’ve been impressed by how well they run things.
My partner and I didn’t have the best day either in the net. I shot 85 getting 7 or 8 stokes and my partner shot 84 getting 4 or 5. I made a mockery of my third on 16 (shank led to double), rinsed it on 17, and somehow thought setting up right on 18 and hitting a draw (rinsed also) was the right play. Kinda lost my mind for 3 holes.
We might have an opening in a afternoon tee time at Boulder Creek on Sunday if anyone is interested.
What time are we talking?
My folks belong to a club up in MI that Club Corp purchased a few years back when it was in financial trouble. Their experience with CC has been pretty good. A good bit of investment was pumped into their facilities, and my folks love taking advantage of the network when they travel (when that was a thing). Won’t find many classic clubs in the network, if that’s your thing, but it’s a pretty solid deal.
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Was at a charity event that had a silent auction. I ended up getting a threesome at Moraine for $725. MVGC (threesome) went for $4,500, Golf Club (threesome) $4,000, Scioto went for $2,600. They also had a slew of other passes, Tartan ($700), Brookside ($400), Wedgewood ($300), and Jefferson ($325).
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That’s a pretty sweet deal! I would think it would get at least a grand
Someone thru the FU bid down on MVGC. With about 15 minutes left it was at $1k. I texted a friend who I knew might be interested and asked if he wanted me to bid for him. He passed and a few minutes later it was $4,500. I would assume that was one big jump in the bid based on timing.
Alright gents (or ladies, of course), throwing up bat signal. My fourth dropped out for tomorrow. Have a tee time at 1148a at my club. First one to message me and commit gets it. Cheers!
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Always out of town. Damn.
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Played at a course in Streetsboro, OH today. Don’t see myself going there again.
That’s an uncommon sentiment. Why won’t you be back? I already have an idea but I’d like to hear it from you
Pace of play, saturation, and design.
Oh, and unmaintained tees. 
About as I expected. The tee sheet is always packed. Best time to play is to tee off before 9am. It doesn’t drain well. I’ve said many times that “the little things” are what really makes a course standout. And Boulder lacks in that. I’m curious as to what you didn’t like about the design.
Oh, what time did you finish up? I was out banging balls on the range in the late afternoon and while I was there I remembered that you were playing. We may have seen each other
so I wanted to share my thoughts on a course i haven’t seen mentioned here before in the Akron area. The course is Barberton Brookside Country Club. I had a company league there probably 7 or so years ago that I played in but haven’t been back since. My partner from that league hasn’t been playing much lately so i was able to entice him via nostalgia to get out for a round on Saturday AM.
The course is not long. The conditions are not good (more on that later). I had a great time.
Writing this really disappoints me because I think the course could actually be pretty fun if it was properly maintained and had some changes put into play. The front 9 is all “interior” to the property, while the back 9 circles the perimeter. For high handicaps, the back 9 is a nightmare because every tee shot has OB right (mostly WAY right though). No two holes are the same, very limited bunkers, small greens, etc. The greens were actually super firm (i learned that on the 3rd hole where i hit a low wedge from 80 yards that hit pin high (back pin) and bounces literally higher than the flag and bounded about 10 yards long of the green. Firmness really does negate some length. The driver was working all day, but having 30-60 yards into a lot of par 4’s with front pins really didn’t allow me to attack as i normally would.
So, fun layout. Holes are all interesting. I hit more irons/fairway woods off tees than I have all year otherwise. The conditioning was TERRIBLE. I say this because I arrived, paid my $35 to walk 18 (pumped about a “cheap” round), and by the 10th hole was thinking to myself that i had overpaid by about 30-40%. Tee boxes were struggling, rock hard, with grass lacking in most areas. Some boxes were SUPER unlevel to the point that you were choking down on a club to account for a ball about a foot above your feet. Fairways were firm, but had some pretty massive dead areas. I had my fair share of “rub of the green” lies in fairways. The greens were the worst part. Dead areas without grass throughout, even within 5 feet of the pinned areas. There were not many ball marks thankfully, which is probably due to mostly high-handicap traffic and super firm greens. The greens that were more dead than others played much softer, so things were inconsistent. The bunkers had no sand, more looked like a garden after being roto-tilled. I’m not sure if they are getting rid of the bunkers (not many to begin with), or if they are just not maintaining them at all.
Overall, I had a great time out there and was able to enjoy my time out there and played in less than 4 hours despite waiting on quite a few tees. The course really could be pretty cool if it was just marginally cared for. I’d say $25 to walk 18 on a weekend would be a more reasonable price. To me, it just bums me out that a course like that, which seemed to be quite busy, couldn’t keep itself in acceptable shape this time of year.
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We finished at 7 or so. The practice facilities were good.
Many of my issues with the “design” are related to pace of play and/or safety issues. Trees that needlessly block your view of an area, for example… stuff like that.
Obviously, based on only one playing, and I’m only really highlighting the things I think could be better or that are negatives. I’m not including the positive aspects of the thing here (I’d rate the course as a 5.5/10 or 6/10 - it’s not worth two hours for me to drive, but it’s still a slightly better than average course). So, mostly just the negatives…:
- Why have rough there? There’s also a dense bunch of pines right that serve no real purpose. Thin them out and allow recovery shots as well as easier tracking of a ball hit into them.
- Mostly fine. Short right fwy bunker kinda useless.
- The fairway is 17 yards wide at 250 yards. Left is dead. Right is trees. Difficult holes are fine, but nobody is going to want to be in the valley left, so there are going to be a lot of people looking in the trees right.
- None of us hit the green from 210 yards, and we spent about six or seven minutes progressively looking for everyone’s balls. Total balls found: 13. Number that were ours? All four, eventually. Did we still wait on the next tee after playing out? Yes. Balls were embedded everywhere on this hole.
- No real issues here.
- The left fairway is again 17-18 yards wide, the right fairway is 22 and runs out after 260 yards. We were hit into on this hole even though we kept a cart in the left fairway plainly visible from the tee by someone who hit through the middle in the trees where three of our tee shots went (all but one ended up downhill to the right with a relatively clean angle to the green. I reached with a 6I). Pace of play nightmare type hole.
- Mostly fine. You can’t see that the water extends around the back as much as it does, and it’s almost the same yardage from every set of tees, which doesn’t make sense to me. I wonder how the front tee players play this hole.
- Great example here of some bad stuff, IMO. First, trees just off the tee block your sight line to the left rough, nearly hiding all of two bunkers that are left as well as the cart path (behind more trees) on a cart-path-only hole. Then up the right, there’s an elevated bunker that hides the pond behind it, with thick, soft rough that’s 50+ yards from the cart path. Flatten the hill where the bunker right is so you can see the pond. If you want a bunker there, put it down by the water to stop balls from rolling in, though honestly it’s just not necessary as players hitting bunker shots over a pond are going to chunk or blade them 90% of the time, leading to slower play. Thin the trees out so you can see up the left side of the hole, both for safety and pace of play reasons.
- The fairway is again 21 yards wide just before you get to the hazard, which is about 230 yards off the back of the long strip tee, and 260 off the black tees.
- Good hole, though the possibly blind second shot is a mild pace of play/safety issue. I say possibly because I was in the left rough, and hit a 7I over trees to 40 yards shy of the green. It appeared that it may be blind going up and over the hill, but maybe it’s not tall enough to actually be blind. If not, the hole is fine/good.
- Decent hole.
- Fine. Green has a good amount of slope for a 210-yard tee shot, not a big size.
- Good hole.
- Trees right by the tee block your view up the right-hand side if you hit a ball to the right edge of the fairway, let alone just into the rough. The cart path is up the right-hand side, too, making it a pace of play and a safety issue, especially as most players slice. Otherwise, a good hole.
- Generally I’m not a fan of massive features on a green when it’s a blind shot. The green has an odd shape, a big tier, and is completely blind (you can see the flagstick). “It’s only blind once” they say, but for a busy almost “destination” type course (I’m using the term loosely, for just folks within an hour or two), this is another place where a few minutes of pace could be saved. Decent hole otherwise.
- Another 19-yard wide fairway at 250 yards off the tee.
- We could barely see the top of the flagstick from where we were teeing off (fortunately it was toward the back). I love a good downhill island par three, but it’s generally good to be able to see where the ball lands. Otherwise much of the drama is gone, unless you want to run forward so you can see the green.
- A good hole with a poor choice of hole locations yesterday. And a minor safety issue, as three of us drove well over the hilltop. We waited long enough so we knew they’d moved on, but people could be hit into here.
I think the course could be pretty darn good with a few changes, starting with firming up the conditions. Plugged balls in areas that are clearly too wet to mow very often (long rough) are a pace of play nightmare, and also just not fun golf. Firmer conditions would let better players hit 3W on some tees and still feed the ball into better areas instead of trying to hit driver into 20-yard-wide areas with a giant slope right and trees left (or vice versa).
I played pretty well. Got boned once or twice, but that’s fine, and they weren’t even on the obvious holes (once I think was a bad yardage - I think he got the slope behind the green and not the flagstick). The greens, because of how soft they were, were beat to heck. So many ball marks, footprints, etc. Billy Horschel would have done his Chambers Bay wiggly snake hand motion a few times on putts.
What do you think of the architecture/design?
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Barberton Brookside ownership tried to sell the land to develop condos/apartments, got blocked by the city of Norton earlier this year. I wouldn’t be surprised if the course goes up for sale after the season.
The fact that there’s no leagues and $16 made it pretty hard to beat for walking 9 after work
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On my way to an event so I will respond with more detailed thoughts later. Overall, I don’t disagree with many of your observations. My history there goes back to before opening day. I’ve seen it evolve, both positively and negatively.
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Yeah, again, don’t get the above wrong. I’d play it more often if I was within 45 minutes and if I could get off early (friends of mine played the back first and got done in 3.5 hours, because they ripped around the back nine with nobody in front of them, then played the front in just over two hours). The above is mostly the negative stuff.
The only thing I forgot: the back tees (and often the next set up) were not even maintained, really. They mow them now and then, but they were in disrepair on many of the boxes. We played where the black tee markers should have been, we feel.
Enjoy your event. Given my one time playing it, I’m curious what you disagree with given your much, much, much greater experience there. When you have the time.
I really like boulder creek its one of my favorite courses to play. I NEVER play it on weekends though. I have a flexible schedule so finding a hot deal on golf now for $35 or so on a weekday morning is always the ticket to an enjoyable round there. The greens can be hit or miss with how much play they get its not uncommon for them to be a little chewed up. Drainage is always an issue, so I try and play when it hasn’t rained a lot recently or I play up on a few holes knowing the ball is going to plug wherever it lands.
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