Monarch Bay Golf Club - Tony Lema Course

This course is a lot of fun. I’ve played here a lot and I always enjoy playing here. Not many obstacles to deal like mountainous hills and excessive trees yet still challenging with tricky greens and long par 3s. The lack of obstacles allows me to relax because I’m not worried to much about a horrific lie but the rough affects your shot enough to strive for a fairway. Finally, there is a consistent wind from the sea that will either help or hurt you but this comes from a picturesque location next to the Pacific Ocean and on a clear day, you can get a spectacular view of the San Francisco skyline from a majority of the course. It is a fantastic golf course I highly recommend to everyone. (Side note for local golfers close enough to here, becoming a member at this course comes with nice perks like a free bucket of balls everyday and a free beer for your round before 2pm and it’s very inexpensive to be a club member. I think it’s worth it.)

Great value- senior walking $36- course conditions were good- a few wet spots but nothing too bad- great greens- smooth and

fast-played from all the way back- a

challenge for sure- will be back

Course was in great shape considering all the rain. Will look forward to playing there again.

Between the 11th green & the 12th tee box, the golf carts stopped running .. I was able to get mine running and to continue playing .. This also happened between the 12th green & the 13th tee box .. Other golfers experienced the same issues .. I brought this up to the front desk in the club house ...

Pace of play was a little slow ..Staff is AWESOME! Course was beautiful ...

This is a challenging course that could be great with a few simple fixes. First, the tee boxes need significant work. They are very uneven making it difficult to find a firm stance or hit a clean drive. Second, signage giving direction to the next hole or, at times, identifying the hole, is sorely lacking. Third, the carts have been ‘upgraded’ with GPS in such a way that assists course management but interferes with the game. The upgrade does not include a screen to show you course layout and distance to the flag. Instead, it locks the cart up at random distances from the green requiring you to back the cart up beyond a line marked by two yellow stakes, one or both of which you may not be able to see from your current position. A screen giving course layout, distance to flag and a warning of approach to the lock-up point would serve management’s purpose while providing a benefit to players instead of aggravation!

Other than that, as I said earlier, it is a challenging course. The greens and fairways are in great shape. I indicated that I would recommend the course but only with a warning about the issues noted above.

Check in - they don’t want me there - showed no care. It was like my $90 was nothing - just another golfer….

Range - totally run down. Entire landing area is dirt. Each range stall has old hitting mat and no rubber tee to hit driver. Typical for an ownership group that could care less about “experience” or value to cost.

Course - all tee boxes / all of them no exageration wasn’t flat. These tee boxes have never been redone since being built. All have been taken over by crabgrass and the greeskeeping staff seems to think this is how they should be kept.

Fairways were much the same as the tee boxes. Weedy and many areas of swamp with broken irrigation.

Greens were okay - probably the best part of this D- course.

Speed / pace of play. Teed off at 9am on a Sunday. 5 hr round. No Marshall keeping pace.

On course amenities - no beers of food offered on course. With all of the waiting they could have at least offered me a $10 beer to buy.

Net/Net - this is a hard pass moving forward. A true D- Beter option is Corica Park cheaper and much much better course and experience very close by.

The course was an absolute gem to play. My brother and I had a phenomenal time! There were great views of the bay and even a few foxes running around. Atmosphere was 10/10. Pro shop guys were friendly and made me laugh. The only thing was missing was the cart girl. But La Piñata was right around the corner for a nice after round dinner. I’ll definitely be coming back!