The Woodlands Golf Club

Nicest course in Alton. Better staff , way less stuffy, and cheaper than Spencer T, all while being just as nice if not better. If you live close I would absolutely recommend this course

They put us in the middle of a senior scramble .. didn’t bother us but the scramble players weren’t happy

This an overall good course. Some very fun wholes. Good pace. Could have a little better conditions but was overall not bad. What stood out was how friendly staff was. Would definitely recommend this and not for too bad of a price.

The pluses: playing golf in shirtsleeves in December, the course is in good shape for this time of year. The only minus: every bumpkin and their cousin came out to try their hand at golf for the first time in their lives! Walked off after 13 holes in 3 hrs. Hole 14 had a single waiting on the white tees, two women on the ladies tees, and a foursome 150 yds off the tee box! Enough was enough! Guess I’m hoping for 40 degree weather to weed out the riff-raff!

I played Woodlands this morning as well as about 2 months ago. It was the only two times I played here this year, which got me to my approximate average number of rounds I play here each year. That might not seem like a big deal, but I play 40+ rounds a year and until a month ago I lived about 1,000 yards from the course the past 20 years. I’ve always loved Woodlands’ layout because of the incredible variety of holes. Even though the tips are only 6400 yards, you can end up using every club in your bag because you can’t always hit driver.

That being said, the feeling I always have when I play here is “what if?”. It feels like Woodlands could go from being a decent place to play to a great golf experience with the following changes:

1) Better playing conditions - It doesn’t have to be perfect, but the upkeep could be much better and in particular the greens used to be significantly better. Also, a well landscaped clubhouse would help highlight the nicest one by far in the area.

2) Find a way to integrate a practice area. Other than Cloverleaf, Woodlands is the only 18 hole area golf course without a driving range. Having a driving range/practice area not only allows people to warm up, but also gets more people “hanging around” the golf course Including young players and people new to the game.

Played the front 9 only but loved the layout and course conditions. Greens were fantastic!

Staff in the clubhouse weren’t friendly, or unfriendly. Conditions of greens, fairways, and tee boxes were great! But that’s about where the greatness ends.

To begin with, we had to go in a quest just to find the first tee box. Come to find out by a kind gentleman added to our three sense, the course layout has been changed multiple time in the past Four or five years. As a result my GPS didn’t work.There was a fix, but it wasn’t made obvious by staff.

The course in its current layout works back and forth on itself, and cross-crosses itself such that on some occasions, golfers don’t know to which greens they should hit, resulting people surviving near misses with flying golf balls.

We were also backed up all day, I’m sure partly because it was Labor Day weekend, but there was no starter, and we saw one Marshall all day on 18. There was a group of six, in front of a group of two, in front of us. Not sure how that was allowed.

All in all, the course has potential. But much needs to be fixed for a better experience. Good signage, more informative staff, and at least a starter would be excellent additions.

Great day to play golf, booked tee time on golf now, to play with my daughter and I. It appeared empty but wasn’t. Things started off ok till young couple in front us were more concerned about their love life than playing golf. Spending 15-20 looking for balls or whatever they were doing in the woods and out of bounds areas. Majority of the holes they were synchronized hitting in the fairway. Not joking they would line up, next to each other and swing and hit at the same time. Speechless! On one hole we thought they had finished and even drove up to make sure they were not on green. We hit and drove to our ball to find out they were down in a creek bed. They either took or threw our ball out of anger. We couldn’t find it and we hit on the fairway. We apologized for hitting into them but it didn’t matter the players anger had taken over. We finally were able to pass them but the damage had been done. We weren’t able to move much as many groups were backed up to slow/poor play. Golfers need to realize spending 10 plus minutes looking for your ball is not how to do things. We had to leave after 10 holes as we were approaching over 3 hours for 9 hole round. The group (4 some) in front of us was hitting their 3 rd shot from the women’s tees when we tried to pass but then realized were just not meant to play today. This course needs a Marshall or two on the course to make sure pace of okay and groups like this are not slowing things down. Shame because we both were playing very well and it was a nice course. They need to address the pace of play Issues especially on a holiday weekend. Shame I really liked things. I know it’s only one round so I would give it another chance but today was one of the worst displays of poor golf Etiquette I have seen in a long long time .