Monarch Bay Golf Club - Tony Lema Course

We played in record heat and enjoyed the Bay breeze. It is a fun course with many scenic SF Bay views. Good value

The course has great views of San Francisco Bay as well as Oakland hills and beyond. Bring extra balls if you tend to miss the Fairway, the rough is truly rough, tall grass! Beware of the red foxes, they are known to steal your food and other items you leave in your cart. The day I played was pretty slow, this is a popular golf course.

My friends and I love the course and mild weather however we've all agreed that next time we play we'll just pack our own lunch. More than once the kitchen was slow, food over priced and quite unappealing. Attitude from the kitchen staff wasn't appreciated as well. I don't write reviews but felt I to say something as that was the only disappointing part of our day.

The course was ok, and play pace was a bit slow, but understandable for an average course.

But one hole was really annoying with aggressive foxes, which were seemingly after food we might have, but we didn't.

Obviously, we couldn't communicate with them that we didn't have any, and they kept approaching us.

I've played here a few times in the past 18 months, each time on a weekend and each time the pace of play averages about 5.5 hours! The course itself is nice, good layout, challenging with the wind, but the pace is ridiculous. They send groups out 6 minutes apart!!! We were a 1.54 tee time following a 1.48!! 10 groups an hour is stupid, they must need the money.

I've played at 8am on the weekends before also, same deal, over 5 hour rounds.

Needless to say I don't think I'll ever come back , at least on the weekends.

The course is challenging more because of the windy conditions... Fairways were in good shape and the greens in excellent condition

The course was in good shape. We started late in the day and by sunset , the temperatures dropped dramatically. Views and wildlife were terrific, and the greens rolled very true. Some blind tee shots made for a difficult first time. Will play it again...

It was a rather long day, because of the mix of golfers that would rather walk than use carts on the course. More than likely it was due to the price of the carts, along with their tee time, it's a little pricey for this coarse. Although we had a good time, the slow play along with the abundance of crabgrass just off the fairway, made for a very challenging day.

It was a beautiful weekday,course is in good condition(although of course sandtraps should have some sand)fairways were nice,greens ok,rough reasonable and a fun track to play.But someone has to do something about the pace of play or overbooking here......No cart available when it was time to tee off,so ended up going out 20 minutes after our tee time,then had to wait at every hole 5-10 minutes which to me is ridiculous for a tuesday tee time(maybe on the weekend)So the round was almost 6 hours.Fun time but hard to play a great round when you wait after every shot.

We teed off at 710 and it was a 5 hour round...ridiculous...

This is the first time I have been playing there, fairway is pretty nicely maintained, rough is tough, green is very fast, a few holes against wind was extremely tough. I will most definitely come back and play some more

Apparently everybody's out of town for Easter break. We had the golf course to ourselves at 11:30 AM. It was dry as a bone in great shape beautifully green and fairways and rough manicured nicely. It's one of the better layouts of public golf courses that I've played in Northern California. Very much a links style layout and vistas. Hopefully management continues to invest money in this gem.

I always enjoy playing Monarch GC, and the course is in pretty good shape after the rain in the east bay.

This is one of my favorites in the east bay.

Get ready to lose some balls! I've never had a course swallow 'em up like this one, the deep grass here is no freakin joke and even the rough made it hard to find a few yellow balls in broad daylight.

When we played, the course was definitely over-booked. The whole front nine we were waiting on a foursome to tee off, that was waiting on a foursome to tee off, the first 9 holes were almost 3.5 hours. This was on a Monday afternoon. Opened up after that though, and everyone was in pretty good spirits.

Can't beat the views across SF Bay, and overall this course makes for quite challenging links-style play and is a very good deal in the $30-40 range with a cart. We also played two days after an inch of rainfall, and the course was impressively dry, so this is a good early spring option for sure.