Blackberry Oaks Golf Club

Blackberry is always a a challenging and fun course to play. Staff is always friendly. New carts are neat. Course was a bit soggy in some places but overall was in good shape. Seemed like the sand traps were improved.

Tee time 1130am went with a 2 some at 1110am, love the new carts, bluetooth stereo speakers, 2 USB chargers, gps, good value, very nice course, play here a lot, can always find deals on weekend afternoons,

Blackberry Oaks is a challenging and fun course to play. the course is in very good condition consistently and the staff is super friendly and accommodating.

Really nice course for the money. Greens in great shape!

Nice course with fairways pretty wide and accessible. Started to rain lightly after the front 9 and some HS kids were getting ready to tee off 10 so we jumped ahead to 12 and it kept raining til 18. We only played 16 holes, but its a course I will play again for sure.

Very beautiful course manicured extremely well fairways were cut short very nice

Good job blackberry oaks !

Groupings were pretty well stacked up but we got around in 4 hours on a Saturday afternoon. Not bad.

Expected the course to play firmer because of the dry weather, but greens held well and had consistent pace. One of my favorite layouts.

First time playing here. Loved the course and the layout. It’s about an hour trip for me to get there but it was well worth it. The course was in great shape. It’s fairly challenging, especially the par 3s. I will definitely be back.

First time I played here, very nice golf course, well layed out and very challenging. I will definitely play again.

For the 1st time playing this course it is well designed. It makes you think about how to approach each fairway. Doglegs and lay ups. Wish it wasnt so windy today. Holes played into the wind and and others the wind was coming across sideways pushing the ball into the fescue. Will definitely take the drive our again..

Play here a couple times annually. It's an hour trip. Otherwise I'd be here more often. Plenty of challenging holes. Challenging, but fair to the point of a properly placed ball will give you a shot at par. There are bailouts.

18 is a GREAT hole!

Course was in near perfect conditions. Traps were a little hard and wet, but the rest of the course was great. One of my favorite layouts in the Chicago area.

Nice layout in great shape for the cold spring weve had. Fun layout. Hard par 3s. Easy par 5s. Good mix of holes. No issues with pace of play or course conditions. Would recommend.

Always a good round here. Course is in great shape, and really enjoy the layout.

Refer to my review of 9/24/13. I'll only reluctantly recommend this place. While a formidable 130 slope from the whites there's far too much water and sand for high handicappers. Pace of play when crowded is always a problem.

Blackberry does have an interesting routing - unfortunately must point out several items -

1) greens right now are hard as a rock and will not hold very well. Well struck irons leave easily observable ball marks - even early this season NO ONE seems to repair them to the point where you're forced to fix at least two or three on every green. The old ball marks from last season aren't healing very well either. Greens are "okay" at this time but can forsee issues with them in a few months. They should institute a program requiring all golfers to repair at least one ball mark when they reach the putting surface. It's that bad.

2) Sand Traps - a tad bit too numerous and many holes require a forced carry over them to reach the proper part of the green. NO ONE seems to be raking them at the current time either. Maintained with many having a nice depth of sand.....but footprints all over the pace. Ridiculous. Problem with the depth of the sand they are impossible to rake properly without a ton of effort. Thus after being in several the first few holes....many just don't bother much after that. Perhaps an upgrade to a heavier aluminum rake is needed from the standard light plastic ones provided.

3) Course Design - All 4 of the Par 3's on the day I played required the same club due to wind conditions and flag placement. If you prox the 4th green you should seriously consider using that club on rest of the Par 3's. The Par 5's all seem to have a forced carry trap fronting the green. The "sameness" of these holes is definitely a downgrade.

4) Back nine routing - just awful. Playing almost in an amphitheatre loud golfers will absolutely disturb you on several adjoining holes. It's off putting to hear golf shots from other holes...and from several directions. Leaving the 12th to reach the 13th tee you become "completely in the line of fire/in play" from the 17th tee.....using the same bridge as they will about 125 yards away (no warning sign). Exiting 15 it's compulsory to disturb players putting on the 17th green as you motor between them and the back side of the 18th tee box just to reach the 16th tee box (no warning sign). No one cares they just drive by laughing and bouncing along. The holes are challenging/interesting but lack proper separation/privacy to them even with leaves on the trees.

5) The finishing hole Par 4 with a 135 yard plus forced carry over Blackberry Creek is a high handicappers torment guaranteeing a turtle crawl finish of their nightmare. The scorecard actually suggests play as 3 shotter to the green. If you do decide to lay up be aware that fronting group exiting the final green will drive right back through your line of sight to reach the clubhouse. And are in play if you hit your layup long.

With a light tee sheet I can recommend Blackberry wholeheartedly.....it's a really good challenge to stay out of the water/sand and route your ball properly.....and greens have a lot of slope in them. Watch your step in the bar area...it's slippery with golf shoes on.

Crowded/high season - if you are proficient experienced player you've been warned. Remember I always tell it "like it is" - unvarnished reviews.

Bunkers were the worst I've seen....could be it's early March but on 3 occasions I hit 3 shots where the sand was so thin the underlining ripped up under the wedge and got caught and almost tore my wrist up trying to swing. Like I said it's a nice course but the conditions of the bunkers were bad....Might try again in a few months and the restaurant was closed on mondays....oh well

Saturday morning , Dec. 2. $38 to play the n December! My choice to play, but, course had tarp on EVERY bunker. Terrible! I know it’s December, but don’t charge $38 in December and have your bunkers surrounded with tarp! $ 18 for that, ok. But $38, course better be perfect in December for that price! Terrible greed for customers to charge that!

Even though the price was attractive, it was very disappointing to find every green side bunker to be protected be black environmental barriers.

There needs to be a way that this kind of course conditions can be identified at the time of tee time purchase through GolfNow.