Steele Canyon Golf Club - Canyon/Ranch

We recently booked and played Steele Canyon in Jamul , CA just east of La Mesa in the San Diego area. Beautiful course and area. We liked it so much we played a second time a few days later. We will be back.

From the young man that helped us unload and load our clubs to the hostess at the restaurant after our round, everyone treated us as old friends. Can’t beat the course or the staff here, I will always look forward to playing Steel Canyon.

This is one of my favorite courses in the area. I would recommend this course to anyone looking for a quality golf course.The fairways were a little dry but playable, greens were in good shape and rolled smooth. Good value for the money.

The course can be challenging as there are lots of tricky shots and places lose golf balls. The Ranch course greens are just recovering from being punched, but overall the greens were in good shape. The sand traps had not been raked and some were just rock hard. Fun day of golf on an interesting and challenging course.

Don’t let anyone tell you that ranch is a good course. It is the stupidest layout of any course I’ve ever played. Hole 1,2,5 & 6 are trash. Especially hole 2 and 5. Bad/idiot golfers think this course has character, but it’s just a really bad design. Bunkers are filled with hard dirt. The cups are volcanoes, meaning a straight putt will break the last inch and you’ll miss the putt. The most frustrating part about this course is that Canyon and Vineyard are SOOOOOOO MUCH NICER and the pro shop will tell you that canyon ranch is the better courses. I hate giving it the rating I did because Canyon is amazing, but ranch just angers me so much that it’s justified.

I love this course but Ranch is WAY over rated. If you play here don’t get suckered into thinking Vineyard is the worst. Just because Ranch has more elevation doesn’t mean it’s a better course.

It drizzled during the night, was misty for half the round starting at 9:15. Maintenance had hoses and sprinklers going on fairways and most of the tee boxes throughout the entire round which was very irritating, Poor planning, annoying and disrespectful. It’s overpriced, even through golfnow!

Course/fairways need water badly. Greens were perfect. Pin positions on the ‘canyon’ were, on many holes, unplayable and ridiculous with slope and speed - made no sense, just slows up play and irritates the players and I still shot 76.

Other players with me had trouble with bunkers which were hard and crusty.

This was the arrival-day round for our buddies trip and I picked it because it had a good clubhouse restaurant and practice facility. It's also relatively short (6,000 yards from the middle-back tees) so I thought it'd be a good warm up.

We started on the Vineyard nine which was very residential and had a few filler holes. Aside from an elevated first tee and a couple other spots it wasn't all that memorable. The Canyon nine took it up a notch with some really cool elevated shots and holes cut along mountainsides. It is certainly not easy though as you still need to hit a straight ball.

Course conditions were great and the crew seemed to enjoy the pick.

Played with a large group on a cool May Thursday afternoon. The practice facility was excellent with a scenic driving range, and excellent and smooth putting greens that proved to be similar to that on the course. The greens were running at 10.5 and were in great shape.

We played the Vineyard-Canyon loop from the white tees. Both nines are challenging and in good condition. The greens are smooth and extremely quick.

Vineyard though is a little short from the whites - several holes that only require an iron off the tee and a wedge. The loop snakes through a residential area and some nice houses.

The canyons is much more spectacular, with water and elevation changes more in play. The course also loops through natural hills and vegetation which is a nice change from the residential area.

The greens on both Nines are smooth and quick. Really excellent shape, and I’ve putted at Royal Melbourne west. Thoroughly recommended, course staff are friendly and knowledgeable, however the staff in the bar didn’t seem too interested in trying to sell us beer or food. Odd. The golf was good though.

Played course for first time. Appears to be beautiful when not raining, however course is well maintained and fun to play. Inside of the clubhouse could use some aesthetic updates. Food was pretty good and staff was really nice.

Great challenging course, fast greens and changes on elevation makes it interesting.

We played the Vineyard and Canyon courses and enjoyed both of them. Although the yardage was not that long (3200 for black tees), the layout was somewhat challenging and enjoyable. The fairway grass needed a little attention, but the greens were in good shape. Overall I enjoyed it and would play it again. The Canyon course had a lot of elevation changes and majority of the holes were away from homes. I think the regular rate is a little steep for the course, but would play again on a discounted rate.