Santa Anita Golf Course

Course is fun and in great condition. It’s forgiving off the tee and has interesting approach shots into greens that make you think - whether it’s deep, high-walled bunkers that protect the pin or slopes that’ll leave you with elevated chip shots if you miss the green. The issue is a lack of the enforcement of rules (mainly pace of play). There were multiple groups of 5 ahead of us with people playing from the wrong tees. If you’re teeing off with a driver on every par 3, I’m not sure why you’re playing from the tips.

At multiple points there were NINE people on a single hole (see picture).

If you have a tee time here, expect to tee off 15-20 minute past your tee time. Which is absurd considering people might pay a non twilight fee, yet tee off during a twilight time.

This course was a major disappointment. The tee boxes all the way to the greens were in very poor shape. You could not tell the difference from the fairway and the rough on most holes. Everything looks green when you arrive but its thin lies, dirt, weed grass until you get to the greens and then those were as hard as concrete. Forget about sticking an approach shot.... you can hit the middle of the green thinking you are on and ready to be putting for birdie and instead your ball would be 20-30 yards past the hole in a horrible position. No need to fix divots here because you cannot put a dent in these greens!!! There are way better courses with similar prices to play then to subject yourself to this place.

The course was fun however their tee time intervals were 5 min apart from each other. This caused consistent waiting of up to 5 min each hole to tee off. There’s more when approaching the 8th hole expect a huge traffic jam. My group approached hole 8 and had 3 groups ahead of us waiting for one group to tee off. We noticed these traffic jams caused the other golfers to become agitated where every was throwing smart remarks at each other and there was even 1 altercation with 2 groups. I would not recommend this course to anyone not until they fix the overbooking issue.

Ridiculous pace of play. No marshals to hurry people along as groups wait too long to tee off. Finished the third hole 70 minutes after our tee time. We completed the round 5.5 hours after teeing off.

Pace of play was terrible. Started at 11:30am and finished at 5:30pm. No golf outing should take 6 hours. Definitely not ever going back to this course

was able to finish 18 holes although the pace is slow and it's dark when finish at 5:45PM.

You'd think a round wouldn't take 7 hours. Go ahead and play this course to find out what that's like....

The tee off time was delayed and the course over booked the group. I spend 3 hours and only play 9 holes , waste time and money. It’s not worthy to play in the last day of the year. Maybe choose some other tee time would be better.

From Joyce

Santa Anita Golf Course was a massive disappointment. For $75, I expected a well-run course with a manageable pace of play—not the chaotic disaster we encountered. It took 3.5 hours to play just 11 holes, and we were forced to leave because finishing the round would have taken an entire day.

The course staff seemed completely uninterested in managing pace of play or addressing the backups. No marshals in sight, no communication, nothing. For a course charging premium rates, this level of disorganization is unacceptable.

The layout is decent, but it’s hard to enjoy when you’re waiting on every shot. Greens were in average condition, but nothing about the experience justifies the price tag. You’d be better off spending your money at a course that values its players’ time and offers a smoother experience.

Save yourself the frustration and find another course. Santa Anita is not worth the headache—or the $75

Our 9 hole round on 12/18/24 took almost 3 HOURS!

We waited on EVERY HOLE from 3-9! At 7, there were 3 GROUPS in front of us waiting at the T. If you keep overbooking, people will stop coming to Santa Anita GC. We’ll try one more round, and if it’s clogged up again, that will be our last round at Santa Anita. Overbooking is really short-sided thinking. Yes, you make a LITTLE more money on the day, but mark my words: keep doing that and folks will simply stop coming, including us!