Liberty Lake Golf Course

It had been years since I played Liberty Lake. Actually before the redesign and probably with a persimmon driver.

Tees fairways and greens in fantastic shape. As good as courses that charge much more. Favorite of the 3 courses we played during our visit last week.

There is a lot to be said for golf courses that don't throw too many tricks at you but still manage to make you want to play them again. Liberty Lake is such a course. My favorite of Spokane County's trio of facilities (Hangman Valley and MeadowWood being the other two), it presents a nice mix of holes that, over the course of a round, ask you to play all your shots.

The course is anchored by a particularly good front nine over gently rolling ground, highlighted by the terrific par-3 7th, whose long, narrow, undulating green is pinched between a pond and two bunkers. Intimidating to first-timers, it gets more manageable over time, as regulars know the green is more generous than it appears from the tee.

Good strategic bunkering and some thick rough define the challenge over much of the rest of the course, with the back nine playing shorter but tighter than the front. Located about 25 minutes east of downtown Spokane and with rates under $50, Liberty Lake is well worth playing. And if you have a morning tee time, make sure to start the day with a breakfast sandwich.

This lovely, affordable, well maintained public golf course is not presenting its best face to the public. It is one of the few public courses in Spokane which has a grass range and a nice practice area. But the range balls are complete garbage. Most of them are so won as to have few dimples. They are hard as rocks. They are dirty and mar the club face. I would say half of the balls I had should be thrown out. Indian Canyon and Qualchan have grass ranges and way better quality balls.

Played this course this morning with three friends I grew up with. We are just starting to get serious about our golf game this season so we have some work to do (considering we all shot between 110 and 125). There was a group of two behind us and a group of 3 (I believe) behind them. I had no problem when the course Marshal informed us that we needed to speed it up a bit. However, it did start to bother me when he came back after about 20 minutes and followed us through an entire hole. And I mean followed us. He was a cart length behind our carts the entire time. At first we thought that he was trying to get by. But, he again told us we needed to hurry up when we told him we left him room on the cart path to pass. He also stated that the pair behind us had been waiting on us all morning (we asked this same couple to play through 5 holes prior and they told us they weren't worried about it). Also, we called his bluff and said, "no they haven't, we’ve been watching them." His response was, "well they forgot a putter, that's why they haven't been waiting." What was it? Were they waiting on us or not? This was a great way to get us to speed up while maintaining good shots. Pressure us. Especially since we pretty much just started trying to be serious about golf two months ago.

Lastly, when I showed up and paid at 6:40am for the round, bucket of balls and cart, I made the mistake of asking the guy at the counter if there was a military discount. "Uh, no," was what I got. Not a, "no," "sorry, no" or a, "not as of now." But a, "uh, no." What was said was, "uh, no." But, what I heard was, "why would you even ask if we have a military discount?" I guess you would have had to of heard his voice inflection to really get a sense of how he said it. I'm not saying I deserve better prices than anyone else by any means because I am in the military. I just thought it would be a good question to ask considering after a cart rental, a round of golf and one small bucket of balls it was $50! But I guess I shouldn't complain about the price or seek some kind of discount considering I got a free lesson in passive aggressive behavior from the Marshal on the ENTIRE 16th hole.

Just to throw it out there, our round of 18 holes took us about 3 hours and 45 minutes, which is slightly faster than the average 18 holes should take.

I will say that it is a beautiful golf course. They did a wonderful remodel on it a little while back. However, due to the condescending and arrogant attitudes of the only two staff members that I spoke to all day, I will be golfing elsewhere from now on. Not to mention that in 20-30 years, my friends and I are going to be the patrons that will be golfing very regularly.

Really unfortunate, we were really looking to have a fun experience figuring the game out together.

Played this course several times and it is normally in great shape. This time the back 9 Fairways had been plugged and they didn't even clear the fairways. It was terrible. I was thinking it was good that I didn't pay the full price that they were charging at several times but wasn't too happy that I payed $15 either. You should be warned of such conditions!

Nice course. Would play again. Beautiful area and great weather. Paired with another couple. Nice guys

First time playing this course and was pleasantly surprised with the quality and layout of the course. The Back 9 is much better than the Front 9.