Encino at Sepulveda Golf Complex

As munis go its a good one, tips make all the 3pars challenging , couple monster 4 pars on the course too, definitely worth 30 bucks, greens city course slow, And zero break., you can go low here

There’s a driving range, and most of the holes play pretty wide open with not many OB or water hazards opportunities.

Staff was nice and the food wasn’t bad either.

Love this course. It’s just good municipal golf but it’s really good good municipal golf. Great day and round.

Long and open, no water. Easy for beginners or those getting back into the game as I am. First time playing in over two years, shot a 91

So, after having come back from the Coronavirus break, the course opened for play about a week ago. The City had been maintaining the course on its regularly scheduled programme of punching holes etc. So the course is in decent shape, the greens are lush but slow.

I don’t mind any of those things - except! The PACE was terrible today. And here is the problem with that: they stretched the tee times to 12 minute intervals for social distancing. Yet we waited on every shot, on every hole, after having teed off at 12pm ish. This is a INEXCUSABLE, golfers!!! And, the course needs to tell people that there is NO EXCUSE to play slowly, or be caught up by the group behind you when you have almost half as many groups in an hour than usual!!!!!!!!! We waited on every shot on every hole, and we played in just under 5 hours!!!! This is so embarrassing. I would understand it if it was the usual 8 minute tees times on a Sunday. It used to be 6 minute tee times couple years ago until we pointed out the fact that the pace was being killed by mismanagement and misunderstanding by the City of how golf is supposed to be played.

There needs to be a sign, and also a vocal reminder by the City and all the courses across the whole state, the whole country, in these times of social distancing the times, when they are allowing you to take a cart by your individual self, there is absolutely no excuse that the group behind you catches up and has to wait on every shot. There just is no excuse for that.

No bells and whistles at Encino, but it’s a good layout. Pace of play is pretty quick, course is long, and can be challenging. Highly recommend it.

So, so shocked and annoyed.

The city bought a slew on new carts for the courses, and that’s fine. The new carts have GPS.

So the city raised prices of the cart rentals to pay for that, but also raised the prices of the range balls!!!! Why???!?!?!???!!! These “Top Range” balls are a joke. They don’t compress and they don’t fly straight. They are rock hard and low spin that if you tend to come over the top and hook the ball with no spin at all it literally won’t fly. You have to hit the range balls with a lot of spin with a fade type shot, otherwise it won’t get up in the air and flies all over the place. For those of us who like to hit compressing draws the ball just won’t fly properly. It gives you false information.

I understand how the city must have got a real cheap deal with these balls but to raise the prices on them when all the City course ranges are now connected with the key card, it’s really taking the mickey that each range is totally different in conditions from one to the next.

I don’t get why Woodley Lakes, which is the only grass range available has different turf now than what the Encino range landing area has. Why not put the same mud and grass that Encino has, on to Woodley’s hitting area. Then I might understand why you would have to charge a little more. Why does Encino need all that grass in the landing area? It never really needed it before. Everything is backwards with the city. Totally dyslexic. Woodley now has no grass with a woeful sand base.

Anyways. Encino’s greens are fantastic right now, though it feels like the back nine is always a bit moist and softer than the front nine.

The rest of the course is about what you would expect from a city course. Decent sand in the bunkers. Enough turf in the fairways. Absolutely no rough to speak of.