St. Marlo Country Club

Greens were a little slow but overall the course was in great shape. No one in front of us or behind us. It was a great day for a 2-some!

I had booked a round through Golf Now, as I hadn’t played this course since I started playing golf six years ago. I errantly booked a twosome (thinking I had booked a threesome with our PGA pro friend being our 4th - the pro had contacted the GM the day before which is required and customary for a PGA pro to do so before playing at any golf course) , the gentleman at the counter, though perturbed, accommodated us and made our foursome work. After paying $90 per person for the round, my expectations of the course were of a top class Atlanta golf experience, this was NOT the case! When I went back in to pay for range balls, I walked in the middle of the counter man crapping on me to his coworker (who I found out later was the GM) about the booking mishap. This was not a time that they were slammed nor did the counter man make any indication after moving us up ten minutes on the tee sheet that this was a great problem or issue. The counter man, red faced and embarrassed that I overheard his conversation (he had his back to me when I walked in on the conversation) was the first indication that this was NOT going to be the “best of times”. The second indication was the course itself. While the actual layout of the course is a good one, both challenging and fair if you play in the fairway and on the greens, the overall condition of the course was not what I had anticipated. Roughly 85% of the bunkers have weeds growing in them or are down to the liners and have very little if any sand. The edges of the fairways are less than ideal with a lot of bare spots, rocks and dirt where grass should be. The greens were very bumpy and inconsistent. While I realize keeping bent grass greens in Atlanta heat in late July is very difficult, I still thought they would be better than this. The good news was the cart staff and the restaurant staff, who were very attentive, extremely friendly and the food itself was terrific. I would definitely recommend the chicken salad croissant. The outside cart staff was equally pleasant and attentive. Overall I would give St. Marlo a 4 out of 10. The counter man needs to learn better customer care skills and. not come off as being surly and crappy towards his guests. The course itself has the potential to be an absolute gem, but if they don’t put the time and effort to fixing their bunkers, rough and greens, this course will always have potential to be awesome but will never actually be awesome. Would I ever visit St. Marlo again or recommend it to anyone? Probably not. At least not until some significant improvements had been made.

The course continues to improve conditions but still has some work. They have recently put sod in many areas and tee boxes, cart paths are still bad but they have done some work little by little. Greens are in decent condition, on this occasion they were slow and lots of ball marks but that happens in the high heat, and people not repairing marks.

They have done a lot of work over the last number of months, course is improving and definitely worth a deal time.

Everything was great. Course was a little soggy, but that was from all of the recent rain. Truly enjoyed the round.

Solid course, in good shape but never drains well compared tonother local courses. Glad the 5th fairway has been fixed. Pace of play was good for a Sat. 4.5hrs. Staff is friendly, decent practice area.

First issue was with the pricing. Golf Now sent me an email saying I would pay about $92 with taxes for each player. The guy at the clubhouse charged me $98 - I didn't want to look for the email so I paid, but afterwards checked, and was overcharged.

Second, on a busy Sunday, there were two groups of four playing in front of us that knew each other. At one point they joined and we saw eight guys together a fairway ahead of us. This is simply inadmissible, especially at a country club charging $100 bucks a round. No marshals were out there so we couldn't complain.

Once the eightsome broke up again, the four guys in front of us were playing from the blues, but none of them could ever get a ball in the fairway. Needless to say they should NOT be playing the blues, or should waved us through. None of this happened.

That made for a very slow round, with 10 minutes at least waiting on each tee box. I have had better experiences elsewhere, and for less money.

The course is not in its best shape but certainly is improving. Grass is coming in nicely, greens for the most part look good (except for ball marks, please just fix your marks people), sand needs to be fixed which apparently they are going to address. Cart paths are really bad, not sure what they can do but at some point they need to replace most of them. They have removed many trees to help with shade on tee boxes. Overall, they are doing work and the course is improving. Would not pay top dollar but it’s a good layout snd worth a good price.

Btw, all the water jugs were filled and cold, they are listening to comments.