Moody Gardens

This place lost a ton of palms in last Feb freeze. Conditions overall are not as good as usual…….needs some TLC. Greens are OK but everything else needs some work.

Fairways and greens are always fantastic shape. Green keeper and staff do a great job. The great conditioning regularly tempts me to drive out to the island from West Houston to play. Go out and play,!

One of the best public courses in Texas. The greens are immaculate!

Course is in spectacular shape! It is a shame that the freeze killed so many palm trees. It appears that they were hoping more would come back but they are having to cut down the ones that didn’t make it. They will be missed as hearing the wind blow thru the palms gives it that tropical feel!

Moody gardens is in great shape with any ball in the fairway getting a great lie with a little fluff underneath. Staff is top notch and stater does a great job, pairing up twosomes and singles.

No complaints greens rolled good fairways were nice traps were in great shape. Hot deal made the hour and a half drive worth it.

The course was in excellent shape as usual. Had a wonderfully time playing as the weather was pretty nice. It was kinda of windy which makes Moody that much more challenging!

The Good: I am a long time patron of the course. I love playing it. It is always in excellent condition.

The Bad: since the new manager the prices have shot up to the point where friends coming from out of town do you not want to pay that much to play the course.

The Ugly: The new manager can use some training in dealing with his customers in a more professional manner. However the rest of the staff very pleasant and kind.

This was my first time at MGGC. Because we were running late, I didn't get to check out the clubhouse etc. It appeared to be an older building left over from the former Galveston Muny. It's elevated such that the main floor is on the 2nd floor. I could see that the bar on one end of the building was surrounded by windows and had the usual sports on TVs. So that's a plus.

Two marshals were hanging around the driving range and handling starter duties. They were super friendly ... some good ol' boys. We enjoyed chatting with them for a bit before they sent us off as a 2-some. I was fully in favor of that. I'm not a big fan of playing with strangers. That, and there was a good chance I'd have a poor scoring round; I did. We saw one of the marshals on the course later on but he was likely handling something rather than checking on players. He did have his radio volume up which (luckily) went off just *after* my partner's tee shot. He might want to turn the radio down or use an earpiece while out on the course.

Water, water, water ... it's everywhere on this course. Take a look at satellite imagery and/or your golf app in order to figure out your safe shots. And you can't hit near the water because that area is often marshy. Oh, and it'll be full of huge, hungry mosquitos. So when you find a Titleist Velocity with a blue dot bottom right of the logo ... that's mine. I left them all over that course! :)

Trees ... what trees? There are a lot of palm trees on the course and it looks like the freeze we had last winter killed half of them. Too bad. Past that, this course won't have any trees for you to worry about. You're either in grass (short/rough) or you're in the water. Well, you could end up in the bunkers; I did more than once. I can't really speak to their general condition because they'd been flooded +/- by the recent rains. Some had puddles and some were just soaked and hardening on top. I imagine the course would have to wait another day or so before they could turn them over and/or fluff them up ... if that's something they actively do. The course is flat -- no elevation changes whatsoever. As for the grounds, I didn't notice any real problems. The tee boxes, fairways, and greens were all in really nice shape. The greens were fast though. I don't know if that's normal or if they'd been cut (shorter) recently. But a putt that should've rolled 10ft was going about 14ft.

As for our particular day of play, it was WET. We'd had a day or two of overnight rain so the course was a little sloshy in spots. It seemed to drain fairly well though. Of course, the cart paths had numerous spots where it remained covered in big puddles. It's not a big deal, but is something that could possibly be added to the maintenance to-do list for a (... wait for it ...) rainy day. Speaking of the cart paths, I really wish every single course would use the red-white-blue-yellow paint striping. They do have the various/multiple distance markers on sprinkler heads ... so that's good. But I'm a fan of 'path paint' as it's so helpful to so many. During this COVID time, this is a rare course (that I've seen) that actually has coolers of water available. With COVID still messing with various things in our respective lives, most courses have not yet gone back to putting out water.

With the airport next door, we were treated to a loud single engine plane that was doing touch-n-go's with a quick vertical accent upon takeoff. It was fun to watch. Speaking of noise, I wasn't used to playing on a course that has streets bordering the course such that you get a somewhat steady stream of cars driving in/out of the course as well as the neighborhood next door. I did not care for that ... mostly because I'm just not used to it.

This course is great. The fairways are immaculate as are the greens. I have nothing negative to say about this course.

You can count in this place being in very good shape (fairways and greens). Bunkers need work. Would be great to see mid-week deals for residents!!