Rustic Canyon Golf Course

Every hole makes you think, but all are fair. Greens are fast and challenging, but again fair. Really great course. I do wish the course would put marshals out to manage pace of play, it can get VERY slow sometimes.

Great course! No complaints. Played faster than last time.

Wow if only the golf world played like this before the pandemic. Great course in pretty good shape. 4 1/2 round. Can’t beat it.

Wonderful golf course that is horribly mis-managed. 1. Checked in and was not offered range ball purchase option. Only learned of that when I got across property and had to walk all the way back to pro shop to purchase driving range balls. Would have been super easy to simply ask, “Would you like some range balls.” Staff didn’t. 2. No one at first tee. So some rude person interrupted our three-some at 3:40 on the first tee box on Father’s Day by riding up on the back of a cart apparently being driven by his two daughters and demanding to be allowed to tee off because his tee-time was 3:20. We told him to go meet up with his group and he held us up — and the group in front of us — all day with rabble-rousing and playing multiple balls. 3. No ranger to clean up his mess. 4. No drink cart. 5. There were craftsman-made Cooler holders around course but not one cooler in them. 6. At the turn, I went back to drink purchase window to buy more water and a G2 for myself and my son. Closed. Tried pro shop for water (we were walking); closed. 7. Greens are beautifully designed and built but ridiculously poorly maintained. Long and slow and pockmarked with hundreds of ball marks that apparently no one was repairing. How about giving out 2 cent ball repairers and encouraging folks to repair their marks? Something to preserve the greens. 8. No seed in the seed container on the push cart. Some sluggo was sitting on a golf cart in the cart shed while another worker signed us in. That dude should have been working — filling the seed containers. 9. Bunkers were not being raked by anyone. There were some rakes, including at the practice bunker next to the chipping green. (So it wasn’t a Covid, no-rake thing.) But no one was encouraged to rake by starter or pro shop. All you have to do is tell folks to rake and then leave it inside or outside of the bunker — whatever rule you want to adopt. But no one said anything and so, as could be expected, none of the golfers did anything. This is a truly wonderful golf course that is too inexpensive. They should charge $10/round more so that the above problems can be fixed. And someone needs to manage the place. It deserves far better management than it is getting now. Could be an absolute gem. Hanse did his job. Now management needs to do theirs.

Can’t say this enough. You guys keep this course in fantastic condition. So glad we have carts again. Always a great round at Rustic. See you soon.

I’ve played here 5-6 times in the past couple of months. This is as pretty a course as there is in LA area. It’s for some really fun holes as well.

The issue with this course is the “challenging” greens. Several are gimmicky/ridiculous.

I played one round with a 3 and a 6. I’m a very good putting 12. There were a number of holes where no one’s first putt got within 10 feet of the hole. The first round is particularly rough because of you don’t know where the Volkswagens are on the greens you can be in a bad situation.

Generous fairways but if you miss you probably won’t find your ball.

Drive it straight play it a couple of times and the course is gettable.

I’ve played here a lot recently for a reason. Well-designed, beautiful course in good shape.

Love this course. Challenges you and always want to play it again.

The course is in good shape, the greens were recently punched and not rolled, so they were a bit slower that normal.

No electric carts made it difficult to walk - long distance between greens and next tees.

I'm someone who has played this golf course many times since it first opened. As I was checking on some of the reviews and comments, I felt as though I had to offer my two cents. To the guy who gave it a 1 star review and said it was more like a cow pasture, I would recommend taking lessons to get rid of your slice. As the name implies, the setting is very RUSTIC so, if you miss the fairway, you will experience its rusticness. Also, you suggested that they probably have to use a lot of water but, actually the opposite is true. Rustic Canyon was the first course in the region to utilize it's natural surroundings to incorporate into the course design (rather than green grass everywhere) and uses far less water than most courses because of that. In the past several years, due to water shortages, other courses in the area (i.e. Los Robles, River Ridge and others) and pretty much everywhere have taken cues from Rustic to strip out the thick rough areas where much water is needed and go to an indigenous, natural design surrounding the fairways and greens.

The fairways and greens are generally in great shape. Not country club perfect by any means but far from anything resembling a cow pasture. The greens can be difficult to read - you need to pay attention to where water would flow. The pull is always down canyon so you need to have awareness of that. The Gil Hanse design takes full advantage of the landscape. Several years ago, floods washed out sections of several holes. In many cases, it made the course better. For example, 11 fairway became much more narrow at approach and makes it that much more challenging. Number 7, however, was a complete washout and, in my opinion, this redesigned hole is the only bad hole on the golf course. The green has extreme undulations which you can't see from the fairway. Center of the green is usually your best choice and even then, you only hope your putt isn't one that requires you to go through a windmill or a swinging railroad tie. Every hole on the back is unique. Without getting into detail, I'll just say that good players will have fun shaping shots and average players such as myself will find it playable and fun. 16 tee offers amazing views of the entire course and beyond. 16 green looks sloped from back to front from the fairway but, really, it's mostly flat. Better short than long on this hole! 18 is a great finishing hole to a sectioned off green that's sloped from front to back. In most cases, it's better to land short and let the ball trickle to the hole. Overall, my opinion is that this is a great course for players of all levels. If you like wildlife such as an occasional deer, LOTS of roadrunners, hawks, rabbits, coyote, etc. you'll enjoy yourself here. There are also trails that go around the property where you'll encounter hikers and many people on horseback to add to the ambiance. Just be weary of rattlesnakes!

My only negatives: I would rather see the 9's reversed for walkers. This makes more sense to me. It'd get the more difficult hiking out of the way before making the turn to a much flatter side. Plus, it'd be a much easier stop at the clubhouse on the turn (which would provide more revenue for the course). The guy who said the bunkers could use some work is right. I know it's supposed to be Rustic but the greenside bunkers, especially, need attention badly. They're awful! Other than that, Rustic Canyon is a true desert links course that is unique to the area and it's a lot of fun to play!

Great course. The only negative is my golf partner and I are 64 years old with bad knees and we need a cart to finish 18 holes. Come on guys do something about this. That being said I love this course. Always in excellent shape. I love the layout it’s challenging but fair. Greens and aprons as well as fairways and tee boxes are all you can ask for in a course.got 13 holes in today. Love this course.

Go play this course. Right now. You didn't know that you needed to, but now you do.

Fun course to play with lots of great view and wildlife to see. Today we saw at least 100 rabbits, a bobcat and a roadrunner, very cool. The downside at Rustic is the pace of play, 2hrs 30mins to play the front 9 at 4:40pm on an average busy weekday. The greens and surrounding fringes looked like they were punched 1-2weeks ago which made making any putts a challenge.

I have fallen in love with this course , epic design, great hole variation, wide fairwaya so you can let rip but challenging to hit greens, gotta be accurate.

It is like playing a classic links course, wind, tricky undulations and need to play some bump and run shots, not all wedge

I am British so the novelty of seeing wildlife like road runners and snakes ( at a distance), plus the semi desert setting and vegetation really made it a novelty for me. No rain too was nice.

If I were to live in CA long term this is where I would take my guests to play authentic golf.

They claim its a LINKS course, when in fact its a COW PASTURE. Mostly dirt and dust, greens very poor, dusty dirty sandy trails thru the weeds from hole to hole. Way over priced - unbelievable it costs that much for such a Dirt Patch Cow Pasture.