Forest Park Golf Course - Hawthorne

First time playing this course, came in from out of town. Had 4 players and pre booked our tee time. The staff that checked us in wasn’t very informative about the course or anything, they didn’t have enough clubs for the 4 of us (2 women, 2 men) so we had to share on a cart path only course. This slowed down our pace of play having to run back and forth and wait for the other person. The rental clubs were nice and did come with 3 balls a bag, definitely needed more with the grass on this course making it difficult to find balls when you’re not familiar with it.

No cart girl and no one monitoring pace off play, had a team in front of us messing around and not being respectful of course, time or players. Carts are old, so no technology. Course is pretty, maintained ok.

I like this course very much but it is way too expensive for this type of course and it is still off- season.

Played the Red Bud/Dogwood combo of courses. Haven’t been there in a few years because it is always so crowded and painfully slow. However, a spring tornado ripped through Forest Park and destroyed a huge number of trees. I was eager to see how the courses were recovering. Pretty shocked as the two courses look drastically different now.

I think Forest Park is overpriced but after the tornado damage, I feel like at least the money is going towards helping the courses recover. Once again, our Sunday round took more than five hours to play.

Overall, the courses were in decent shape. We are in a semi-drought but the fairways and greens were pretty good, while the rough was patchy. A number of tee boxes were beat up but not terrible. Again, lots of unrepaired ball marks on greens. SMH! The biggest thing was how different the courses seemed to play with so many trees gone. A lot of tee shots, especially on Red Bud, seemed to be much more open now.

The small parking lot is always very full but this time was even more busy. Ended up parking on the street and walking with my clubs a couple hundred yards to the clubhouse to check in. Not great and a poor first impression to visitors.

Played Hawthorne and Redbud. I like Dogwood better than Redbud. Enjoyed the round, shot 80

We played the Hawthorn/Redbud courses. The Hawthorn course is flat and holes 3,4,5,6 have no special design qualities. Just boring.

A tornado went through the course and took out many of the large mature trees. The course looks totally different now.

Forest Park is in decent condition considering how many rounds are played on this course. Here are a few things I found not up to their usual standards. The price of $72 is high, considering the course you are playing. There are no rangers and the round will be over 5 hours. Tees had weeds or bad sections (Hawthorn 3, Redbud 4), greens with bad areas (Hawthorn 4, Redbud 4), bunkers had rocks or weeds in them (Hawthorn 4, 8).

The staff is pleasant and they know how to run tournaments. I would recommend the course, however, your round will be extremely slow and the parking lot is too small to handle the golfers for three 9-hole courses.