Raven at Sandestin Golf and Beach Resort

The cream of the crop of the courses in SanDestin. Tee boxes, fairways, greens were immaculate. Rough was thick in places but fair. Definitely a RTJ course. An absolute must play if you are a golfer in SanDestin.

Enjoyed the course. Had a few bad spots on the greens. Very challenging course that requires solid shot placement to score well. Will definitely play this course again.

Decent rentals but not what any true golfer would select. No gap wedge and my set had a women’s 9 iron. My wife had men’s clubs except the “woods”. If the golf course plays cartpath, only it is a terrible layout. The mounds, that guard, the fairway, and the level of the cart path make it so that you cannot have any true concept of where your ball is at. Also, no true yardage markers in the fairway. If you can’t use the cart GPS you’re just guessing at your yardages. There were some yardage markers on the cart path. But again you had no real concept of where your ball ended up because you couldn’t see the fairway from the cart path. The guys at the club drop were very friendly as was the starter. Pro shop staff not friendly at all.

First time playing Raven at Sandestin. Pro shop and staff along the course was friendly and informative. Tee boxes, fairways and greens were in great shape.

The course was in great shape. Greens were soft. Twosome got stuck behind a slow threesome and almost ran out of daylight to finish. The Marshall asked them to speed up or let us play through to which they did not. Called to get a Marshall back out to help us move along and I was told everyone went home for the day. Overall it was a 6 hour round due to this group in front.

I took my two sons-in-law who are “okay” golfers and I am now a short-hitting-find-the-fairway golfer.

We had a very good time on a course that has a nice design and flow. We played the white tees and that worked well.

I certainly give it a thumbs up for all but the most discerning golfers.

I found the staff very friendly and helpful. I was somewhat disappointed the condition of the greens. They were a bit bumpy from recent work. Fairways and tee boxes were in good condition. My major issue is with the pace of play. According to the timer on the GPS display we completed the first 9 in 2 hours 5 minutes. When we got to the snack shack at 10 tee there was a backup. The group ahead of us had gone through the group in front of them. The group we were now behind was extremely slow. Some times they took more than on shot off the tee box, just because they didn't like the first one. When we finished the round according the the GPS timer we were 55 minutes behind pace of play. During the entire back 9 we never saw a marshal to rectify the slow play. Our tee time was 12:10 and we finished at 4:55. Much too slow a back 9 to make the day enjoyable. I hope that this is an isolated incident and the marshals will be more prevalent the next time I am in the area.

According to the in cart ipad map, we were at most 7mins off their expected pace of play at any point. However, the ranger harassed and followed us for four holes saying we were 25-40 minutes off pace. Just unnecessary in an otherwise awesome day!