Blakes Golf Club

Other reviews suggest this course is getting back to its best, but I felt the course was is great condition. Fee boxes and greens were lush and fairways were great. The rough is unforgivable though, and even if you see where the ball went, it’s lost forever! This makes the course a lot harder but still great fun. Windiest course I’ve ever played, combined with the having to be reasonably precise, probably not a beginners course! Will be back in the summer to try it again when I’m hopefully better.

Clubhouse was shut very early on which meant we couldn’t enjoy a beer after but it was a Wednesday I guess!

Played today here for the first time in 6 months and the course was in a shocking condition.

Tee boxes looked bare of grass on most holes, while putting greens were overgrown and lumpy. Irrigation lines through all greens made putting a lottery - would have been better to have been made aware in advance to avoid and book elsewhere.

Large number of bunkers were awful, should be GUR.

New ownership have a lot of work to do to repair the poor managemebt of their predecessors. Good luck!

Such a shame as really liked this course. Won't be back for a very long time.

Unplayable bunkers and lots of "construction&repair" that seemingly has been like this for a long time. A lot of improvement to be done to have this course fulfil it's potential, which it does have, very pretty and fun layout. Greens & Teeboxes could do with some maintenance, the fairways and roughs were good though.

Course layout good and speed of play ok. Tee boxes are in a shocking condition as are the bunkers which are effectively GUR and have been for many months. Even the water hazard on the 17th is effectively a building site. Surprisingly fairways were in reasonable condition as were the greens.

Course is in a terrible state and greens are just embarrassing !!!

greens and bunkers in poor condition but otherwise good course

It's fun to go and play golf at a club you haven't played before we started of with the Blakes full English breakfast with a great view from the clubhouse and the course is a links style with challenging greens to putt on and is windy with great views looking through a valley and the signature hole was the 8th a par 3 island hole with water all the way around and we were unlucky with the weather with some big showers of rain only finish on the 11th hole so we came back again for the next week and got the full 18 holes in lovey September sunshine 27° degrees 🌞

Overall a really good course, that is beginner friendly and still challenging for mid handicapped. Well kept greens and a lovely layout. The only thing was that most of the bunkers were not filled with any sand and a couple more ball cleaners would nice to have (it does have some)

This course is a waste of the land it is built on, they have machines everywhere like they are digging for oil. Do not spend your money here, the staff are in complete denial.

Tee boxes = awful

Greens = a joke, seen better indoor mini putt putts

Fairways = diabolical

Bunkers = GUR for the last century, 0.6% of them have sand on them and it is building sand with pipes in them,

If you love wasting money you’ve come to the right course.

The majority of the greens were not very well maintained. They were rock hard and very bumpy. There were 3 or 4 that had been watered and played well which highlighted the neglect of the others.

More than half of the bunkers had no sand. We played this course about 6 months ago and had the same problem. So it’s doesn’t appear to be a temporary issue.

The tees hardly had any grass and weren’t very level.

All in all, it felt like this wasn’t being maintained very well.

We didn’t feel this was good value for money at £29 per person. So we won’t be going back in a hurry unless things change.

Have played this course twice in summer and twice in winter & it’s always in great condition. The greens are especially superb.

Tee boxes fairways are in poor condition. Greens are ok but a bit patchy and bare in places.

Many of the bunkers have no sand in them at all. It’s worse than when we played there a couple of months ago. Obviously the course needs lots of rain but the issues run deeper than that. My group were very disappointed overall and we won’t be coming back until there are improvements.

Green staff under stress. Trying very hard to upgrade the course. But no water bunkers being renewed with sand.. with the weather we are having this is not a easy job. Green staff keep you heads up, it will be good again keep up the members are behind you.

Always fun to visit, island green hole a highlight. In good condition, greens were good overall. Nice inland links course.

The course layout was fantastic, the state of the greens and bunkers were terrible. Most bunkers on the course were out of action and filled with rubble. The greens were bumpy and badly maintained with most being indistinguishable from the fairway

The course is looking a bit tired allowing for the high temperatures

You can see there is work being carried out (bunkers watering tidying)

Course, could be a lot better greens are very patchy,so are the teeing areas , price gone up a lot this year. However you can get a Sunday morning tee time. Not the best , but to be honest not a lot of Choice for non members in Essex/ Herts border.

We had a tee time of 11.08, so did 4 others, which made it interesting!! Then due to that delay we ended up behind the back end of a 4 ball society (we were a two ball) that were soooooo slow and would not let us through 4.5hrs for the round in 28 degrees!! Not good at all plus the course was/is in really bad shape. A lot of bunkers are unplayable with ground works being carried out on a lot of holes.

Course itself is actually a great layout, a very open style almost with a links feel to it which would be very desirable for golfers in the area. From an Island green par 3 like TPC Sawgrass to some long par 4s and gettable par 5s, with some nice water features. The club has a good set up with a practise range, chipping and putting green.

All bunkers aside the 9th hole ( just been put in and seem great) are GUR. Greens need to be cut and rolled regularly. Get these two things up to scratch and give other areas such as the fairways & tee boxes some TLC it could be a very good course and attract all levels of golfer. If the points above are boxed off they'll be on to a winner. With the current setup I'm not sure if the club has the funds. From a 0-5 handicap