Buffalo Tournament Club

BTC is an interesting layout and the greens are excellent, but the fairways are often in poor condition. The greens fee w/cart ($37) is higher than some other public courses in the area that are as well designed and much better maintained.

Still, the friendly staff and interesting layout makes it worth playing, especially if you can get a discounted rate. Special deals are available.

Love the course layout, prices are good, staff is friendly.

What is needed here and since it opened is a lot of TLC.

General appearance, lots of twigs, branches, leaves etc... lying around. Too many little metal poles with ropes going through them blocking off front on greens , around tee boxes, cart paths etcc.. they take away from the appearence.. Need a better definition between the fairways and rough, they blend together.

The course layout is nice - but too many holes have rough grown in front of the greens which makes the option of hitting shots short of the green and rolling the ball up to the hole impossible. This is the most frustrating part of the course layout. No other local course employs this feature as much as BTC. It is THE MOST annoying part of the experience of playing here. The greens are large and the the fairways are well kept. But they really need to cut the rough down in front of the greens to make playing here A LOT more enjoyable! The lack of a clubhouse is also a major drawback. They have been working on one for years now but it still seems like it is at least another year away.

Every green, even the par threes should have an opening of fairway cut about 10 yds wide.Then you would have a great and very playable course.,for all golfers, and probably attract more customers.

We have played this course many times over the past few years. We all agree we like the layout but hate the condition of the course. the ruffs are not consistently mowed, the fairways are in fair condition. The greens are , for the most part okay. We find the fact the every green is completely surrounded by 3-4 inch rough is not to our liking. The course needs better maintenance. We will try again next season, but if improvement isn't there, we will not play again....

The layout of the course is visually appealing.. 5 tee boxes give any level of player an opportunity to find their game. Greens are enormous and subtle.

Putting green is strategically placed. The driving range is large and near the pro shop.

While the course is not perfect. The current management is making an effort to make the course better.

One suggestion is to add ball washers to all holes.

The greens are big and fair. They roll pretty well. But completely around each green is approx. 20-30 yds of rough...the fairway does not go all the way to the green! I don’t care for this at all! The course seems to be run with minimal staff and care. They have been working on a new clubhouse for over a year! We were told that it would be up and running by Sept. 2018, but in Oct. 2019 it is still not done! If the course received the appropriate attention this could be a really fine course! But, unfortunately, they have chosen to do as little as possible. The carts have not been cleaned in two years, and are filthy! It’s an ok course for locals, but there are much better courses in the area that are much more worth the money. For what you get here, it’s over-priced!

Not sure why there’s negativity around this course. I’ve found it to have good value - far better than some other similarly priced local options like Audobon or Rothland.

Big greens that roll true. Most tee boxes need help. Several interesting holes on each nine.

Terrible experience on 8/4/19. Slow, bad conditions.

Read below if you'd like, but in summary: there are MUCH better options in the area, don't waste your time or money at this place.

Response from Owner:

AJ, I have researched your pace of play from yesterday and I see that you teed off yesterday at 3:54pm and finished the front 9 at 6:03pm. This shows that you played the front 9 in 2 hours and 9 minutes, which is faster than our pace of play policy. This puts you on pace to finish 18 holes in 4 hours and 18 minutes, again faster than the usual pace of play of 4 and a half hours. We also had a small outing on the course before you yesterday which obviously did not slow down your pace of play. In regards to the conditions we have been constantly working to improve the conditions of the golf course by watering our greens and fairways to make sure we are providing our customers with the best experience possible.

My Response:

Thank you for your response.

Our actual tee time was 3:27, finished just after 8PM. Front nine was excruciating, waited for two groups ahead to tee off on 4, 7 & 8. Back nine pace was better, but we still waited on 80-90% of shots.

Conditions...drove on #11 to center fairway into what was essentially a waste area of dead grass and dirt. Conversely, drive on 14 in fairway ended up in a mud puddle. Found that each fairway had good spots and bad. Tee boxes looked like they hadn't been rotated in a week, and greens were littered with ball marks old and new. 12 foot putt on #8 was not makable given conditions, and this was fairly consistent hole-to-hole.

I honestly love the layout of your course, and I think if managed better it could be an area jewel right up against other area public courses (Ivy Ridge & Harvest Hill come to mind). Unfortunately, given what we went through yesterday, it will be a long time before I come back and try it again.

I have played this course many times over the last 10 years and the conditions this year are the worst yet. I know management is trying to get the clubhouse project done, but that seems to be taking forever, and the course is suffering.

I played twice on weekends this summer and the halfway house was not open either time.

I love the layout of the course and will give it

Another chance again next year.

For the current conditions it's over priced.

I gave an overall rating of fair because I know the potential, and believe that management is trying.

Decent layout with large greens in pretty good shape. Fairways are improving, although still need some further work. Clubhouse appears to be nearing completion,which will be a big improvement. Carts are generally dirty, which is another area of improvement.

I have NEVER played a course that has NO fairway approach areas to the greens. You can NOT run a ball on to the greens. Pin locations need to be changed weekly on your OK greens. Tee Boxes need to be changed daily.and broken tees picked up.Layout is fine and Club House looks nice. Try a promo to get the driving range used.... to nice to just set there. Giant flaws in fairways need to be repaired .

Pace of play was slower than any course I played this year Over 5 hours Greens in great condition Tee boxes and fairways were poor !!!

Below is an exchange regarding my round on 8/4/19. As bad as the 5 hour round was, the interaction with totally apathetic management is worse. Their GPS measurements are inaccurate, and don't take into account the half hour wait to tee off.

Summary - there are far better courses in WNY, don't waste your time at this one.

Me: Terrible experience on 8/4/19. Slow, bad conditions.

Mgr: AJ, I have researched your pace of play from yesterday and I see that you teed off yesterday at 3:54pm and finished the front 9 at 6:03pm. This shows that you played the front 9 in 2 hours and 9 minutes, which is faster than our pace of play policy. This puts you on pace to finish 18 holes in 4 hours and 18 minutes, again faster than the usual pace of play of 4 and a half hours. We also had a small outing on the course before you yesterday which obviously did not slow down your pace of play. In regards to the conditions we have been constantly working to improve the conditions of the golf course by watering our greens and fairways to make sure we are providing our customers with the best experience possible.

Me: Thank you for your response.

Our actual tee time was 3:27, finished just after 8PM. Front nine was excruciating, waited for two groups ahead to tee off on 4, 7 & 8. Back nine pace was better, but we still waited on 80-90% of shots.

Conditions...drove on #11 to center fairway into what was essentially a waste area of dead grass and dirt. Conversely, drive on 14 in fairway ended up in a mud puddle. Found that each fairway had good spots and bad. Tee boxes looked like they hadn't been rotated in a week, and greens were littered with ball marks old and new. 12 foot putt on #8 was not makable given conditions, and this was fairly consistent hole-to-hole.

I honestly love the layout of your course, and I think if managed better it could be an area jewel right up against other area public courses (Ivy Ridge & Harvest Hill come to mind). Unfortunately, given what we went through yesterday, it will be a long time before I come back and try it again.

There is no doubt that all of your greens fee is being used to build the new clubhouse. The course is the worst that it has been with no sign of maintenance. Not worth the money or the aggravation. Fill your course up by charging $20 and maybe use some of the money for the course.

When this place was opened, I was genuinely excited to have a new premier public course in the area. At first they were saying the upkeep problems were because the course just needed to “grow in” or something along these lines. I went this past July and the whole course is one big weed. I’ve never seen so many weeds on an established golf course in my life. In the fairway, in the rough, even on the fringe. The bugs are also eating this course alive as well as it’s patrons. The greens do roll decently well. The layout has its challenges and it’s probably the best thing about the place. The clubhouse has taken well over 3 years to build supposedly and they’ve run their operations out of a shack or trailer basically since it was opened. The overall upkeep of the place is disastrous and just disappointing. Such potential gone to waste that I can’t even get friends to go their anymore when everywhere else is booked. They’d rather just not play, and that says a lot.

will never patronize this course again. conditions are poor and the staff are the most ignorant people i kave ever delt with. save your money

Cart paths need work. Fairways need work. Holes in #3 fairway have been there for years. Rarely see anyone working on the course other cutting the grass. The greens are OK. I took a lesson from Ben a couple months ago,Good guy,Big help. The sand traps are not good.The pace is OK. The starters are good.

yes a few holes could use a little more work #1 and #3 even more so -back 9 pretty good maybe 16 or 17 a bit more - fairway bunker on 16 and fairway bunker on the right on 17 -the greens are excellent 95 % of the time -key course feature -lotta nice holes bunkers usually good shape too