rev:text
| - THE GOOD - I booked about 2 weeks in advance and paid $61 on the course website for a time around 8:00 am on a Sunday. By the day of our round, Troon's "dynamic pricing model" had the price at $98. The course is an easy 25 minute drive from the strip.
The layout has a good variety of holes. Each 9 features a somewhat demanding 4 par as well as a short, risk/reward one. The four 3 pars are varied length ranging from 100 to 200 yards. The fairways wind through a housing development, but are wide enough to accommodate those with less than pinpoint accuracy. There is not much water, but waste areas border the fairways and a small arroyo comes into play on a few holes.
The beverage cart found us twice on each side. The guy at the end of the round who cleaned our clubs was cheerful and engaging.
THE BAD - when we checked in, I told the starter that I wanted to hit a few balls to warm up. He called the cart guy on the radio and asked him to bring up a small bucket. When I got outside, the cart guy asked "did you pay? They cost $3." I went back into the pro shop and paid my $3 and ended up with a very small basket with around 20 balls. I'm not bothered by having to pay, but they sure didn't have their act together. Either make me pay at the outset, or give me the balls when I got outside. I didn't really have time to deal with the lack of organization.
Also, there is no GPS system in the carts. The course provides a card with hole diagrams and yardages. Check the distances before your tee shot.
THE UGLY - The course conditions were worse than expected, and based on recent reviews, I wasn't expecting much. The tees and fairways were bare and scruffy, almost too firm to take a divot. Same goes for the "grass" driving range. The greens were shaggy, but hard enough to make stopping all but perfectly struck approaches difficult. You didn't need to worry about finding a footprint in the bunkers, because there was no sand. Bottom line, the conditions were not up to par with other Troon courses I've played.
I'm being generous with 2 stars. Aliante needs to make improvements to course conditions or they may be following Silverstone into closure.
|