DarkHorse Golf Club

I was disappointed with the conditions at Dark Horse. This is normally one of my favorite courses, but the greens were beat up and slow and the fairways were burnt out. Also, they need to get water stations placed on the course.

I had a threesome booked. My 2 buddies couldn’t make it. I found out later they charged me for the whole threesome. I get that that’s technically allowable when you reserve with GolfNow, but no other course I’ve ever played in the Sacramento region in 10 years has ever enforced that for any reason, and they didn’t have the courtesy to tell me about it. On top of that, the course is trashed. Fairways are horrible and the greens are loaded with pockmarks. Looks like a ghetto muni course. I will never go back there and will steer every golfer I know away from it. It’s a shame, because it used to be a gem of a course that was very well run.

Course is well maintained and driving range facilities are great. Staff was very friendly and helpful.

Nice course, fun to play. And the 2 for $99 makes it a good deal. BUT, there are no ball washers on the carts or tee boxes. And, on a very hot day, we could find no water there..Empty water dispensers.

Not good!!!

I had a good time, Travis is an excellent employee

Being in the middle of a heat wave I expected there to be some wet spots on the course. Not enough water & it’s burnt, too much & it’s wet. The greens ran true and weren’t as fast as usual.

Get to the course for a 6:10 tee time, end up playing for 5 hours. No marshall, no water, no staff besides the greenskeeper tamping ball marks on the greens every whole we’re playing on and he refuses to leave the green with verbal warnings/shots coming in. 2 for $99 is a joke where when I got to the course the person at the register “called it even” and used it for my round. On top of that, was charged $25 for a cart fee which somehow wasn’t included in the $99 I spent for the tee time. Greens are chewed up along with the tee boxes. Pretty course but now worth $125 + fee for range balls. Course is losing money and it shows

The course is in shockingly bad shape. Nothing like what it used to be. It looks like a neglected muni course.

Dark horse is a very beautiful course, but No Common amenities. 100* Degree day 1 water station 6 holes in. No ball washers/club cleaners on cart or course. No trash can. Can’t take carts to the parking lot. For 90$ this course needs help. Weekends plan for 5 1/2 hour round. Slow slow slow .Beautiful course.

Many of the fairways are wet requiring lift clean and place. Fairway 8 should be closed to carts. Mower operators continued to operate their equipment while we we were trying to hit our shots. One even drove to the green we were on trying to put out. Literally he drive up to the green and mowed around the green when we were playing. Very rude lacking any golf etiquette. My son and I agreed we could not recommend the course to anyone to pay and play. Dark horse used to be one of the premier golf courses. It is a shame what it has become.

It was 111 thank goodness I brought water with me. We saw the cart person wants and only had old hotdogs no other real food on the cart. We saw her about seven and I asked if the stand between nine and 10 was open and she said it was not because there was nobody at the golf course so she only had the food but we see us a little later. We never saw anybody again, it was extremely hot very hilly. Of course has always fun to play. Unfortunately, the greens were very inconsistent due to heat? I imagine that some were cut and some were not? Most difficult day to play ever, next time I’ll make sure and have my own food

It pains me to give a poor review to such an incredible golf course. And I mean it when I say incredible. There's a reason this place makes the Golf Digest list of top public golf courses in CA every year. It is both a strategic delight and a visual treat. And to the ownership's credit, they keep the course in stellar shape, especially for what you pay. It's easily my favorite course in the Sac area, no contest. It's a must play for any golf enthusiast.

Unfortunately, the course itself is where the positives end. When we checked in at the starter shack for our noon-ish teetime, the starter informed us that both the snack cart at the turn and the cart girl would be shutting down at 12 because the course was slow that day. Suffice it to say, we paid full price for our rounds, so we weren't thrilled that management was sending all of the service staff home just as we arrived. How could it possibly be that there would be literally no way for us to buy food or water all afternoon? Knowing that we would need food at the turn, we bought hot dogs at the start of our round, and ate them soggy two hours later. It would have been nice to have stored the hot dogs in a cooler for food safety reasons, but the carts have no coolers, so the hot dogs sat out in the heat until we ate them.

To make matters worse, despite the 110 degree heat and total absence of a cart girl or snack cart at the turn, there are only two--count 'em, TWO--water stations on the entire course. It was lucky that I brought four large refillable water bottles with me, because my playing partner and I each needed two huge bottles to stay hydrated for 6-8 holes at a time. If we had only brought one standard water bottle each, we literally could not have played for lack of water. Maybe the lack of water stations would be less of an issue if the ownership had the cart girl doing rounds all day, but we only saw her once on the fourth hole before she left. We took the opportunity to stock up on Gatorade. Thank god we booked our teetime for before 12.

It's clear from the many, many reviews like this one, and the many weirdly defensive and aggressive responses similar reviews have received from the Darkhorse account, that the ownership just doesn't care about these issues. Which is a real shame. How difficult would it be to put a water station at every other teebox like so many other golf courses do in hot climates? Is it really so cost prohibitive to erect a nice shade structure next to the snack cart so patrons have a place to sit and eat out of the sun? I'm not even here to knock them for lacking a clubhouse. Good golf doesn't need a fancy clubhouse. They could get by without one just fine if they did a decent job of providing water, food, and a comfortable, shady place to eat. Unfortunately, besides the course itself and the practice range, Darkhorse has virtually no facilities at all, except for a couple of bathrooms.

The crazy thing is that despite all of this, I'll still be back. The course is *that good.* Darkhorse should be a top golf destination for miles around, but it's not. And until something changes it doesn't deserve to be.

One of the better course in the area, especially at the price point. I do wish they had Marshall’s out enforcing pace of play. Allowing 2 groups to hold up play (for 3 groups behind them) and force us through a 5.5 hour round is unacceptable. The staff is always friendly and the course maintenance is phenomenal. But rounds that take that long are a quick way to turn people away.

It’s been several years since I last played Dark Horse. The conditions were very good from tee to green. Dark Horse is a course where even the easy holes are hard, and each hole is memorable. It’s a bit pricey compared to other courses in the greater Sacramento Valley and it’s more than an hour away from where I live, so visiting a few times a year would be reasonable. I will always dread #11, where a bogey would be fantastic, and always look forward to #18, a great finishing hole.