Sanctuary Lake Golf Course

Overall I would say this was a fun place to play, and that's hard to say about most places these days.

The course is maintained fairly well and its quite scenic for being a municipal venue. Has an upper scale vibe about it. Elevation changes for some fairways, tiered greens, wide fairways, and challenging but not ridiculous settings make it a enjoyable experience. Staff was friendly, rangers were helpful.

The course is built over a landfill with some methane stacks, but they are well placed and designed into the surroundings and there was little noticeable smell on the day I played if at all (80F day I played). Higher Summer heat might make it more noticeable I would say.

A couple of water areas (one front, one back) but options exist depending on where you tee it up, to help avoid losing your ball to the deep.

Overall, keep the ball in play and your average golfer can have a decent score, making it even more enjoyable. As the guy in the commercial says, "Go Play".

First time playing this course this year. The course has several fairways under construction and in general the greens were fairly rough. Since it is early in the year these imperfections may be worked out by June.

Sanctuary Lakes, Troy, MI. proved to be a solid test of golf. The course has generous landing areas for tee shots but the approach shot into the green presented some challenges.
Nice elevation changes, nice pace of play, an enjoyable round of golf.

Great open links type course, well maintained, slightly to much money for the course, but I guess they can do that because of the great location. Also brand new battery operated golf carts was a plus. This course has lots of hills and its a short course.

Slow play and smells. Not worth the price. Play was slow, the drinks from the pub were real good.

Considering the time of year, late October on a windy 60 degree day, the course was in very good condition and the greens were excellent for anytime of year. The Links Style Course was quite challenging in the wind, especially with all the elevation changes.
This is a very nice complete Municipal Course that the city of Troy has. I would whole heartily recommend this course. It might be a challenge for the high handicaper with the high grass and some target landing areas.

This golf course in a nice links style golf course. Is somewhat challenging a little overvalued during the summer months. Usually crowded pace of play is 4 and half hours. Every once in awhile you smell methane gas because your literally on a land fill.

I had seen prior good reviews for the course, so I was excited that there was a "good deal" for it a few weeks ago. The pace of play was pretty bad, and the course itself wasn't anything to write home about. This is a course I would recommend if the price gets to the $30 range.

We teed off at 8 am and still had a 5 hour round. No excuse for play that slow when only about 5 groups are in front of us. The course staff must get people moving or step in to let others play through. Other than the pace, I liked the golf course. Nice layout, a lot of elevation changes, a few blind shots that would be tricky to first time players.

Sanctuary Lake is an excellent golf course built on an old trash dump. The only problem we have encountered is the pace of play. There are a lot of people that they send out too close together and the course backs up often. We have played 5 hour rounds many times, which is why we will only go if we are one of the first groups out. This is a true link style course that is maintained very well. On a hot summer day you can definitely smell the trash but it isn't too bad.

In order to score here you must put the ball in the fairway, the heather is penalizing and the greens are much more receptive if you are able to put spin on the ball. This course has a good mix of holes that are target golf and others where you can bomb it off the tee.

I've been playing Sanctuary Lake since it opened a few years back and I'm a big fan of the course and layout.  I've played it at least 20 times and this time combined all the things that are wrong with this place.

I booked an 11:16 hot-deal time for a twosome ($31 each for 18 w/cart) - that's about the most I want to pay to play almost ANY course in the area, there are too many good courses and good deals to pay the full rates that many courses charge.  

Key items:

1)  Called at 10:30 AM and was told that it was "quiet/not busy until leagues this afternoon" - arrived a little late at 11:25 and worked our way up to the 1st tee to find that we were behind 2 other foursomes who were waiting for 2 other groups to clear the 1st hole.... and it was stacked ahead of them too.  4.5 hours later we finished our round.  The "ranger" (very nice guy, btw) came by several times and chatted us up but like any other public course in the area, did little actual "rangering" afaik.

2)  The greens were aerated - I know I should ASK this time of year, but other courses will often volunteer that information.  On the bright side, they only aerified HALF of each green, and placed the pin on the other half.  I appreciated that... however, the greens were in ATROCIOUS shape.  Old ball marks and green divots EVERYWHERE, including surrounding the pin positions (4-5 ball marks within 1 foot of the flag) - the ball marks were clearly there when the cup was moved.

3)  The course mandated cart-path only, and I know we got a lot of rain the night before but there was NO reason to not allow 90 degree cart usage.  I play 60-80 rounds annually IN MICHIGAN all times of year and I understand not wrecking a course, but there was no good reason for this mandate on that day.  There was no standing water in ANY fairways and aside from a couple of squishy low-lying areas, the fairways were firm.

4)  Many bunkers were washed out, consistently, with no power-raking done that day in any way.

5)  At the turn, we had time to kill so we ordered food - we were told it would be 10 minutes for our chicken wrap and chicken tenders.  20 minutes later we were handed our food.

***

This may sound like a lot of complaining, and it is - but the organization and management there consistently presents an attitude and pricing structure that puts them in a category that implies service, facilities, and maintenance that are on a par with other nice courses in the area.  They consistently do not provide it.  The course is "local" and the convenient location is it's primary selling point - but I would much rather drive a little extra distance to Blackheath, Devil's Ridge, Boulder Pointe, or Twin Lakes to the North -- or west to Lyon Oaks or Coyote and pay LESS rates for MUCH BETTER MAINTAINED COURSES where the staff seem to appreciate that you're playing there.  

Sanctuary Lake, you disappointed me horribly today.  I should never have to play a 4.5 hour round at 11:30 AM on a weekday in September with such sub-standard course conditions.  Straighten up and put some of the money back into the course.