Meadowlark Golf Course

Greens were not fully recovered from aeration. Greens were slow and bumpy. Traps had sand, seeding is being done. A lot of brush has been removed.

I've played this public golf course for years. You can usually easily get a tee time here on the weekends via calling the course or using the online website. They do let 5's out after 12PM on the weekends, so if you have a couple of friends that want to join, you can get a great rate here and enjoy golf with friends. This course is not long by all means, but you sure get to use driver a ton and still have some challenging shots across the course. Over the years the trees have been trimmed, making the course even easier to play. I usually walk the course because it's pretty flat and there isn't a ton of hills to climb. This course does offer a driving range off mats, but gets very full from the locals. You can also find 2 practice putting greens with 1 of them having a chipping area, no bunker practice areas.

Played Meadowlark in Huntington Beach Thursday 07/16/2018, with a 12:15PM scheduled tee time on a Golf Now Hot Deal @29 per player with cart, plus fee. Used my $25 discount code earned by booking an earlier round during the July promotion. My cost with fee was $7.98.

Arrived early 10:45AM driving up from Mission Viejo early to assure time to stretch, practice pitching and chipping. The parking lot was about 20% full and the course was pretty open. I practiced pitching, chipping and putting before checking in at 11:25am and getting assigned a cart which I prepped and then went to the clubhouse restaurant for a tasty bagel. I did not try to go out early however when I went back into the pro shop to get a pencil the starter told me a twosome had just gone off at 11:40 there would be another at 11:50 which hadn’t checked in yet. I could tee off an catch up to the twosome or wait for the 11:50 to check in. I tee’d off to catch the twosome at 11:45.

Upfront I have warm feelings about Meadowlark, as it is the course I learned to play golf on in 1971. I like the layout of this course and the challenges. This classic course built in 1922. (Having moved to HB in 1969 when there was very little around, I can’t imagine how this got built in 1922) wind and doglegs are it’s primary defense.

The course has ample parking, a nice pro shop, and restaurant. The practice range is OK, with mats the only option. The practice green is very representative of conditions on course both in speed and contour. Carts were neatly lined up in front of the pro shop. They are clean efficient and simple, no GPS. Weather for my round was pleasant, blue sky, fluffy clouds, and about a 5-knot breeze wind that would grow to 10 knots with higher gusts as the round progressed. High was in the mid 80’s.

I played from the whites. Meadowlark is not an overly long course playing 5,568 yards from the blues, and 5251 from the whites.

Tee boxes were mostly level, light divot damage, with few brown spots. Ground was spongey in some spots. Overall good footing was easy to find.

Fairways were mostly lush, with patches of brown grass, roll was very good. The course had been heavily watered and there were some areas of mud, soggy rough, and standing water in dips in the cart path.

Meadowlark features concrete cart paths, which the course requires carts to stay to on some holes, and they force you onto in same areas around greens. Currently there are many signs telling golfers to exit the cart path only at a 90-degree angle to their ball. You are not to drive up the fairway. Many of these are in desperate need of maintenance. Either Kidney belts or raised ground clearance are needed until they can be patched replaced. I suspect the California national guard could use Meadowlarks cart paths to test the durability of armored vehicles.

Fairway rough is thick with bare patches, sticky and penal. These are aided by a large tree population defining the fairway. There is water on the course, but it is not the primary defense of the course.

Fairway bunkers – there are very few fairway bunkers on the course, but those that are present are like their greenside counterparts, well cared for sand was compact in the two bunkers I played from requiring a chop shot exit taught by Gary Player and Lee Trevino vs the more fashionable sand explosion shot.

There are three forced carries of water, none of which are that daunting. The primary defense for this course are the postage stamp size greens and on this day the wind. The numerous trees hide the strength and direction of the wind, when the ball gets above them shots get exciting and your recovery game will be tested. The greens are Poa Annua mowed very tight resulting in very fast greens, firm with few levels lies lots of slope in all directions, and ridges. The pin placements today were most frequently on a ridge or the break of a false front. On several occasions balls that landed within 5 feet of the pin rolled to the fringe or off the greens. I felt the greens were softer than when I last played here in May, and fair, there are a couple that are best described as upside down salad bowls, but they rolled reasonable well there a number of unrepaired ball marks.

Pace of play was excellent, I was not able to catch the twosome in front of me until the ninth hole and only because they had caught up with another twosome that was walking. They asked me to play through. Essentially although the course was busy, I had the course to myself. I completed the round in exactly three hours.

I really enjoy this course. The greens are in overall good condition. The elevation changes, judicious use of water, bunkers and trees puts a premium on finding fairways. The upside-down salad bowl greens mean you want to use a very lofted wedge if you can. There is currently a lot of ground under repair, the most extensive being the eighteenth hole where it compromises the route to the hole. If the wind hadn’t been present this might not have been an issue, but as the largest section of GIR sits adjacent to the large fairway bunker and water in a natural lay up zone it made playing the hole much harder.

At the Golf Now Hot Deal price of $29 this is a very good course, at rack rate during the week can still be a good value. Right now, in this condition I recommend playing. The coastal location makes for great playing weather, and the design of the course will challenge you. Bombing driver is often not rewarded.

Now if we can get them to fix the cart path that they want us all to stay too.

Seriously, they need a starter and allow the first green to clear before letting the next group tee off. It’s ridiculous. I can handle a slightly slow round but, the first 6 holes took almost 2 hours. 14 min wait on 7. I quit at 12. I was well over three hours in going to the 12th tee box. Waiting on every shot. Some hack took my ProV1X when I was on 10 and they were coming up 9. Three people saw him take it, and the kook just denied it and walked away with my ball in his pocket. Playing with a elderly lady, and I was so over it I just let him go without slapping him. Unless the course is almost empty, it’s a s-show. Be selective about the times you play here.

Course is well maintained. Some tee boxes are currently being repaired but that didnt effect the round. Pace of play was great. Holes 14-16 provide a good challenge as the wind gets funneled down by the holes. Staff were great and even remembered me from playing a few weeks back. Overall a great course for money

Windy and cool. 2-club wind coming off the Pacific.