RiverPines Golf Course

Thanks to Hurricane Irma, I was forced to leave Florida for a safe haven in Georgia. Shortly after arriving I checked the Web for golf courses in Duluth, GA, and chose RiverPines Golf Course as the course I would play. This 18 hole championship golf course is located 40 miles Northeast of Atlanta, tucked away in Johns Creek and nestled along the Chattahoochee River.

     First impression is everything, and my first impression of RiverPines Golf is highly favorable. Their location is convenient. Their website is well designed, informative, and I like the online tee time scheduling. They have a catchy slogan; "Created by nature and enhanced by man". RiverPines Golf Course is rugged, with woodland beauty in a destinctive natural setting. It's moderately long in length measuring 6602 from the tips, but challenging for all skill sets. The fairways are winding and sloping with trees lining both sides of the fairway. The course is hilly, with a few blind tee shots. I normally do not like blind tee shots, however the exception to my rule was hole #18. It is a very steep uphill, 396 yard, par 4 with a ridge that is about 75 feet high and approximately 150 yards from the Blue tee, which must be cleared in ordered to score well. Once the ridge is cleared there is about fifty yards of flat landing area before the fairway starts a downward slope towards the green. If your tee shot heads left of the fairway over the ridge, prepare yourself for a hunting expedition on an upward sloping, sidehill, full of thick foliage, tall grass, and trees. The chance of finding your ball is slim, however if you are lucky, your ball might just bounce off the sidehill and kick back to the fairway. Conversely, if your tee shot heads right of the fairway over the ridge, pray that it finds the fairway sand traps, because the chances of you finding your ball on the right side, off the fairway is exponentially less than on the left side of the fairway.  You will need the Golf Gods in your search party to find your ball on the fairway dropoff, which is very steep, with tall rolling grass, thick ground covering foliage, rocks, trees and maybe a snake. Near the 100 yard marker the fairway slope seems to level off ever so mildly for about 15 yards, before continuing it's downward slope. The approach shot to the green from 90 yards is an uphill shot. The green is a peninsula green, sloping from back to front, undulating and relatively fast. This hole is best played with No Fear!

     There are a few signature holes on the course (#6, #13, and #17), but my favorite is hole #17. It is a short, dogleg right, par 5 (495 yd) with the Chattahoochee River running the full length of the hole and left of the fairway  Fronting the dogleg is a large pond, and through the fairway are waste bunkers, trees, bushes, thick rolling grass and a meandering stream. Finally, the meandering stream cuts across the fairway in front of the green. The approach shot into this well protected small green can quickly turn Eagle thoughts into buzzard bogey hatchings. Be patient, play this hole wisely and the Birdie will come to you.

     This course is challenging with a slope rating of 71.1/132 from the Championship tees. The pace of play was brisk, with no hold ups and a round completed in 3.5 hours. The day I played it was sunny, 80 degrees, with a mild wind. The course was in good condition.

     What I really like about RiverPines Golf Course is their commitment to customer satisfaction and family fun, including a 9 hole par 3 golf course to entertain beginners and to brush up on short game skills. The course offers a driving range, chipping area, practice bunkers, putting greens and a irresistible clubhouse with a modern pro-shop and grille. RiverPines Golf also has a strong female presence and half the pro shop is dedicated to women shoppers. I look forward to my next round of golf at RiverPines Golf Course.

When I called River Pines directly before booking the tee time, they said that they have not aerated the greens. That's just wrong...

I have played this course many times and it has its pro's and con's. There are a few holes on this course such as 10 and 11 that detract from the overall course. It is a 3 star public course that will more often than not provide a pleasant golfing experience.

Overall the course is in pretty good shape. The greens however green are really uneven. Rolling the greens would make a huge difference. The course gets a LOT of play and so unrepaired ball marks, etc on the greens are to be expected but at least smooth 'em out!

The course was in bad shape, way to expensive for the quality of the course.

This course is weirdly laid out, with a lot of blind trouble off the tee. Slightly burned, with large slopes in the fairway, you can pure a drive down the middle and lose the ball, because is ran off the side of a hill into nothing.

The greens are kept in good shape by the staff, though, as are the bunkers. I found the 19th hole to be on par with public county courses, which isn't praise or scorn, just that my expectations were a bit too high.

In all, I'll rate the track to be easier than most, even if I didn't score particularly well during my round. If you hit a modestly straight ball - no wild slices or hooks - it's hard to get into a lot of real trouble. There is water in play on a lot of holes, but you typically have to hit a pretty poor shot to flirt with it.

River pines is a great course for anyone to play. It tough on the first time to understand the layout, but we had two playing partners who played it before. I would like to come again and try it out again.

Played nine holes last week in the late afternoon and loved watching a heard of deer running across #7 fairway which you will see a lot of. Great layout but i wish they would add more sand to the bunkers. If you hit bunker shots be careful there is only about an inch of sand in the bunkers and hard clay on the bottom so a spinning sand shot is out of the question. Be aware not to hit down the right center of the 18th fairway or your toast and O.B and the fairway drops off to the right and a descent tee shot is penalized.

This course is doing all the right things. I could see they were making improvements to the course, which shows me they are putting my money to work. They are working on the pace of play with clocks and signage and friendly rangers. This shows me they care about everyone's round. I highly recommend this public course to anyone coming to this area to play. I will definitely be coming back.

Funny thing about me and this course I have tried to play it at least five times and never got to finish because it rained. The first 4 times i got the the 16th hole each time and it rained. The last time I got to 8 and it rained. I love the course though and the people are nice and they give you range balls included in price. I also heard that they now have GPS on all the carts so that will be a good addition. Hope to play it soon and finish all 18.

This is a beautiful, well maintained, fun layout golf course which runs along the Chattahoochee River, but its not very much fun to play.

I played with 2 of my golf buddies and we had a 9:40 tee time. The golf carts have a card on the windshield with your tee time. We were in the cart that said 9:40 and next to us was a cart with a card that said 9:48. We get to the tee about 9:30ish and the group ahead of us was teeing off. When they were in the fairway, we pulled up and started getting ready when the starter told us to stop, there is another group coming. We wait about 5 minutes for a 4 some with a card that read "9:40+" on their cart. This was obviously a 4 some the course took on to make some extra $ and screw up the pace of play for everybody else that morning.

We sat on every tee box for at least 5 minutes. Often times we got to hang out with the people waiting behind us, it was that bad. To top it all off, the course is REALLY concerned about pace of play. So much so, that they have clocks all over the course and little computers in the cart that tell you how far off the pace you are and that you need to play faster. So while we are on the tee box for 10 minutes waiting to tee off, the little computer is just rubbing it in how slow things are going.

This is the kind of stuff that makes golf not enjoyable. Im not even going to talk about the beverage cart that drove right by us and never bothered to stop. That was just straight up rude.

If this course could focus on the quality of rounds played rather than the quantity of golfers it puts on the course, it would be an exceptionally great place to play.

?? conditions.
Recently played 18 on a Saturday. Course as a whole was in good shape, but the traps were ridiculous. Obviously, not raked, even topically much less deep, for days. Some had virtually no sand...that's right, playing off of MUD. The others had packed down sand. The traps' condition is as much a part of the course as are the tee boxes. I do not appreciate paying for a round (and not cheep by the way) to only ADD STROKES trying to hit a decent shot out of those traps. Either fire the manager, or the super. Someone is NOT doing there job.

it's been raining pretty frequently this year but this course is absolutely dying for water already. Bermuda is almost back from dormancy but with the lack of moisture it's lagging behind other local courses. bent grass greens are very firm and with their design, usually sloping away from the fairway, it's very difficult to hold even high soft shots. bunkers are poorly designed and rock hard. play this course in the summer and you might as well use your putter the whole way.

We only got through 5 due to rain but we had a good time grabbing some food and beer after. The manager seemed to be very apprehensive. He tried giving us a rain check for basically 50 cents a hole. I said that was unacceptable and he ended up giving us a rain check for a little more but still under a buck a hole. A little unreasonable if you ask me. He then apologized for his short temper stating it was due to the fact that he had been there since 6 AM (not my problem). I will definitely be going back to finish my round. Other that the uppity manager, it was very enjoyable.

Minutes from work can even get a round in and go back to work. Great deals on GN.

I really enjoyed the course. The staff was friendly and helpful. Several holes play right near the river which made for some cool scenery. The course was challenging and well maintained. Overall good time, will go back soon.

The course was in good shape. Fairways and tees are really nice. The greens are slower and bumpier than I would prefer, but overall pretty good.

The course seemed to be in much better shape from the last I time I played it over a year ago. Fairways and bunkers were in good shape. Most greens rolled well. Would be nice to remove the handrail from hole 15 or 16, and create more natural steps to the green. I think it could be easily done and improve the appearance of the green. Overall, the course was nicely maintained, and the staff was friendly too.

beautiful afternoon - friendly people - no wait - just fun