Forest Park Golf Course - Hawthorne

Course is very well kept for a municipal course. Sometimes gets crowded but that’s just a testament to its location, quality and demand. Strong golfers can score low here and high handicappers get plenty of forgiveness for missed shots. Highly recommend.

You know what you are getting with this course. Nice easy layout, urban setting, conditions OK but fine for the fee.

Played Redbud and Dogwood. Too many holes roped off. If you walked with a cart, there were very few spots wide enough to pull a cart through. Port-a-Potty on dogwood course was almost flowing over. Very disgusting. Greens good. Staff very friendly.

Nice and open fairways on the Hawthorne and Dogwood 9’s. Course was in great shape for the middle of January and played well. Obviously the tee boxes and fairways were a little frozen still, but still a great time. Only 1-2 other groups out with us before noon on Sunday, so no rush or backup.

Hawthorne 9 is fun and adequate challenge.

My only complaint is that the dormant grass in the fairway was cut too low. With the ground hard, it’s a bit like hitting off the cart path. Great fun though.

We played a 5 hour+ round today and it’s a joke how the course is being run currently. We paid $33(which we thought was a good deal) for a hot deal to play this round and when we showed up for our tee time there was 3 other groups waiting to tee off. We teed off over 30 minutes after our tee time. We waited on every hole 10+ minutes just to start playing it. There’s other things that I don’t understand about this beautiful course by those that run it.

1. There’s no water on the course and all the jugs are empty. I know it’s not a covid thing either because no one wears masks inside working so they just want to use that as an excuse. Just seems lazy to not fill them up for customers especially at course that is usually $50+ to play. There was no cart girl either until we saw her parked on Dogwood #8 for 3 groups (she didn’t move after we passed her either). So you can’t even buy drinks if you wanted to and the course was slammed so having no water and no options for people makes zero sense.

2. Beer 6 packs are $22 for domestic beer (most expensive in the area) and they have had only grocery bags to put the beer and ice in for over a year. The whole bag just leaks the entire time and it’s insane to charge that much money and not even order beer bags once in a while. This has been happening for over a year so someone literally doesn’t know how to order more beer bags, I guess? If the person that is in charge of stocking supplies sees this, please stop getting grocery bags from Schnucks and purchase actual cooler bags for your $22 beer so it doesn’t leak everywhere.

3. Please hire a starter to make sure people are playing at a normal pace and playing the correct holes. I have never seen a starter there playing 20+ times over the years. It was a mess this morning just to tee off and it shouldn’t be up to players to figure out if a person making the turn should go ahead of a group that’s been waiting 20 minutes to tee off already.

Bottom line: I love this course but I can’t visit anymore for the prices they charge and the amenities they are lacking for no good reason. They charge way too much money to have simple basic things a course in this price range should have. Also I can’t just be gone for 5-6 hours every time I want to play a round of golf so pace of play needs to improve. Something needs to change or I think more people will realize this and will go to similar courses for the same or less money and get way better service overall.

I've played Forest Park since I was 15, am 70 now.

Don't ever recall the course being in better shape.

I'm old n not at all a long hitter, so YES, the course

is tuff for me. I also play @ The Highlands course

and do much better there as far as scoring, but it's

MUCH shorter. IT was an absolutely gorgeous day,

sunny n comfy temps on Oct 4, 2021.

REALLY enjoyed the course with my son. He kicked

the old man to the curb but we both loved it.

Slow play because it was super busy, but I"m retired

and my son was OFF, so we were in no big hurry.

Forest Park is one of my favorite places on God's

green earth, Being going there since I was 7 or 8,

when I used to fish in one of the ponds. LOVE IT!

Pace of play was pretty good for how full the course was,only complaint is the leaves could be better cleared from the fairways

For a municipal golf course, Forest Park is well run and is in surprisingly good shape considering the number of rounds they have there. We played the Redbud/Dogwood courses.

The Redbud course has the most character, next is the Dogwood course. First 3 holes are interesting, and the rest are flat. Hawthorn is all flat.

The fairways are some of the best zoysia fairways you will find on a public golf course. The greens are in decent shape and at a good speed. The downfall of the greens is there are so many ball marks because of the amount of play and the well-watered greens.

The par 3, 6th hole on Redbud is an interesting hole. The green is 3 tiered. With the middle part of the green being the “gully” of the green. They had the pin on a slope which was not fair. The 8th hole on Redbud, has severe erosion issues on the left side of the hole, near the cart path.

Pace of play on Wednesday morning was outstanding. Did not have to wait at all.

My playing partner had medical problem so I cancelled at course but could not get cancelled with you. Not good

What a great public course. Forest Park is a Gem and having a public course of this quality is amazing. As a visitor to the city a wonderful way to see the park.

Tee Boxes and Fairways were excellent. Enjoyed the course layout.