Back Creek Golf Club

This course is absolutely awesome!! Amid everything going on with covet 19 the course is open and in great shape especially for this time of year! Greens are rolling very nice

I am finally going to review the course after 5 years of playing it regularly. However, this review is only for the conditions at this time of year. I am not kidding when I say that the greens are perfect. Three holes do not drain very well in the wet season (1, 11, 16) and are almost always cart path only. With winter rules and tight budgets, you aren't going to see the bunkers maintained. If you haven't seen the course, put it on your list of a "must try"

A great course with great greens. It can definitely test your short game if you miss some greens on the wrong side

Course is great. Narrow fairways, tricky greens. Challenging course in all the best ways. Play here and have fun. Jim in the pro shop is friendly. Despite that I showed up just before the course championship was about to tee off, he let me go off the back and then play the front when it was clear.

Played Back creek this week as I have for the last several years. We always enjoy the course and the value with lunch included. This year we immediately noticed the course conditions had drastically changed from previous visits. tee boxes are chewed up with many divots and crab grass everywhere. Fairways are not any better with sections of bare mud, standing water and more crab grass. Greens are variable with some firm and others receptive. Pace of play was slow at 4.5 hours which is typical for public course with no rangers activity. Highlight continues to be the restaurant and bar.

We will be looking for other courses in the area unless back creek returns to previous form.

The staff is very unfriendly, the started let people go off at all different times despite their tee times. The ranger was not monitoring pace of play. We ended up leaving the course because the wait was so long. We waited at least 5-10 minutes at each hole. When I addressed the pace of play concern in the clubhouse the staff was not receptive and were very rude. Definitely would not recommend.

Always a pleasure playing at Back Creek. Staff is super friendly and accommodating. Course was in great shape even with the heat we’ve been getting.

Spending a short weekend in Delaware we were looking for a course that we had not played before and Back Creek was one that was never on our radar. Not anymore though as the course was challenging but fair and the greens were fast and tricky. The play was a bit slow at times but being a links course you needed to stay in the fairway. Only negative was at the turn at lunch no hot dogs were ready. Fortunately the cart girl hooked us up. All in all we will definitely be back

Overall the course is in good shape. The rough was extremely high(because of the recent wet weather, I'm sure) which made finding anything that wasn't in the fairway an adventure.

Course was decent but over priced. GolfNow pricing was about what course should be priced everyday ($34).

Fairways were soft and cut nicely. Ball sat up very nice. Greens needed some maintenance. A lot of unrepaired ball marks. Greens were slow and seemed to have breaks at cup.

We attempted to play this course on Sunday. It was crisp weather but this did not stop us. A twosome and threesome were ahead of us, both were slow and getting slower. A Ranger on the course could have sped up play, or moved others to back nine. So frustrating, we skipped a hole and left after ninth hole. The cold temperature and slow play made the day a bust.

Course in good shape fairways in great shape hot dogs awesome and people very friendly a little slow play but courses fault 4 knock heads in front of us otherwise a 4.5

Let’s start with the good….

This is a really nice golf course, a 5 star course with the right adjustments. Greens are in excellent condition, sand was actually sand (not rocks), tee boxes were grass (not dirt), and relatively level. Our foursome loved the layout, and overall “feel”. It sorta had a little Wyncote vibe with a few more houses around. The bar service was AWESOME! The food was AWESOME! And the price with what was included, and course conditions, made this a superb value. Based on the course, food, and clubhouse service, made this a worth a 50 min drive.

Now……. here’s the rub.

Starter / Ranger need to chill out…………don’t ruin a groups outing by hounding them unnecessarily.

From the clubhouse to the first tee we noticed one of the carts was so slow we could’ve walked faster. The starter / ranger followed (lurked around) us out to the first tee box, at which point we brought this to his attention. His immediate response was, “they’re all basically slow”. Two of our foursome went to tee up on the blue tees , followed by a comment by the starter “I guess you guys are all single digit handicappers”. “Those are for signal digit handicappers”. We would’ve made the correction on our own, and didn’t need guidance. He then explained the 1st hole was cart path only, and scramble after…..he also mentioned “pace or play” twice on the first box (which I thought was a little unusual). We ALL felt like we were being pushed along before we ever teed off. Pulling up to our approach shots on the first hole, the ranger came out with a new cart to exchange. I guess he noticed how long it took us to get to our drives with the slow cart. Things were going seemingly well until the 5th hole. NOTE; there was NO ONE in the preceding tee box on 2 & 3 when we left the greens, and we were on the green when the threesome(regulars with 3 separate carts) entered the tee box on 4. Shortly after our tee shots on 5, we felt the presence of the ranger again. Get this, the ranger approached us again, and mentioned keeping the “pace of play” up. This was IN THE MIDDLE OF A HOLE, and after ALL four of us reached the green in 3 on a 508 par 5. Was he expecting us to Dustin Johnson it in 2? After mentioning the pace of play in the middle of 5, he told us the group behind us drops off after 6 . Yea, then why in the world would you interrupt a hole to tell us that, when it didn’t matter anyway. We finished 5 upset (needless to say), and plotted along 6 & 7 at OUR pace. Guess what happened at 8??....Yep, you guessed it, a 10 min wait on a par 3 waiting for the group in front of us. This prompted a call by me to the clubhouse, followed shortly by a visit from the manager. He proceeded to tell us where we should be time wise after 7…guess what, we were nearly 10 minutes ahead of pace. He then suggested we were behind based on our tee time….but how about this, he had the time we teed off wrong by nearly 25 minutes. When realizing (egg in face) we were ahead of schedule, he attributed this to the ranger moving us along…(dude, just admit you guys screwed up). The ONLY delays in our round to that point was the starter/ ranger that hounded us. We stopped off for a drink and dog on the turn, and moved to 10. A group came out of the clubhouse and met us at the 10th. They were the group that teed off nearly 30 minutes ahead of us. Imagine, a stop for a drink and dog, and were ahead of the group that started 30 minutes ahead of us. We let them move through, as they were a group of 3…..from that point forward we waited for them. On 12 we were greeted by yet another “ranger”. He asked us if were held up at any point, and we responded, “no” (only to avoid explaining as it would be a waste). His response was a sarcastic “wow” (implying that we were dragging along).

So, a group of 4 played in the middle of a Sunday with a cart exchange, a stop off after 9, and 3 interruptions by management in 4 hours and 15 minutes. Yes, I guess that’s really dragging……(written in a sarcastic tone). I’ve played 72 rounds in 14 months, and this was only the second time pace of play was mentioned to me....let alone being hounded over it. The only other time was when my buddy and I were paired up with a couple of hacks on a cart path only in a swamp.

We visited the pro shop one more time to complain about the additional rangers sarcastic “wow”. The manager sort of led onto why we felt pressured out of the gate….he commented, “ We had an event here earlier and that slowed things down (paraphrased)”. So, to the ranger that didn’t have the sense of putting the 3 regulars in 3 carts ahead of the 4 some that didn’t play there before, and the manager that didn’t adjust for the earlier delays……..your poor planning doesn’t become our emergency. Thanks for ruining what was otherwise a wonderful day.

This was out first time to Back Creek, but it won't be our last. The course was in great shape with the exception of some grass growing in some of the bunkers but overall we couldn't find any issues with the court.