Dunno if I've posted about this before but it's renewal time at my local, and I've been on the fence for a while although think I've maybe got 'the plan' sorted, maybe
My issue with my local is that the greens are kinda terrible, they get (as in regularly, not a one off) diseased late in the year/over winter so although they've recovered a bit by now they're still the worst greens I play on by a decent margin. They also don't water them enough so they're super firm which is just a pain. Add in that the tee boxes are fairly poor in terms of flatness but also several of them are limited in their grass coverage shall we say
Both of these combined is pretty damning really, 2-3 shots per hole are affected... There's also a question about maintenance, not so much day to day stuff but there was a bridge over the ditch on the 9th and 7th that were failing so they removed them over a year ago and not replaced them so you need to walk around, there's a hut on the 9th with a bench, or nowadays without a bench, and half the roof.
But, on the other hand, it's cheap at £496, although that's up 5% this year. The social side is great, some really good people, and it's super convenient being 8-10 minute drive from home.
Not sure if this goes onto pros or cons but it's a tough course, even ignoring green/tee issues above, it's short so rated 'easily' but actually a really really tight and tricky course where you have to think and manage your way around, especially lately with no general play rounds from other courses on my handicap index this generally seems to give me a higher index so easier to win comps
So yeah, was/am looking at alternatives although maybe left it a little 'late' at this point. But there's several courses I'd consider a full switch to in terms of distance from home, Chippenham, Erlestoke, Cumberwell Park, Bowood and Kingsdown all around 8-10 miles/20 minutes from home. I kinda discounted Bowood because it's expensive and Cumberwell Park cause I already play there 2-3 times a month and it can super busy/slow when there's events on (it's like a resort-y course, ish), Chippenham isn't the nicest drive either but should probably consider it more now I'm writing this. Issue being, and why I've maybe left it a bit late, is that I hadn't played several of these, including Kingsdown and Chippenham, I say hadn't as I played Kingsdown yesterday...
Kingsdown is also interested as they've just been added to 'Playmoregolf' a points based subscription thing, so my thinking/'the plan' was to maybe renew at my local (for one more year...) and then do something like Playmoregolf, or at Erlestoke they have an off-peak membership cheap-ish, as a secondary membership,
So yeah, went to play Kingsdown yesterday and kinda viewed it as a potential membership course, full membership there is ~£1250 plus a £250 joining I believe, so bit of a jump from my local. But, the tees were lovely and flat with grass and everything, and the greens were much better too, probably nothing special but when compared to my local it's night and day. Also got a really nice short game practice area, didn't use the range but it's meant to be nice (but my local is also building a brand new range so whatevs). One thing I found, being overly critical, is things like the warmup nets were a bit manky, like not terrible but under trees and didn't seem to have been cleaned/powerwashed in a good while.
But overall the course was nice, got an option for just 9 and that can be starting on either 1 or 10, some good views and generally a nicer place to be/play than my local tbh. Then I re-checked the playmoregolf 'matrix' and I can only book after 9am on weekdays and 12pm on weekends which is a bit meh maybe, especially with work during the week/winter I'd barely get to use the points so it'd basically just be saturdays really with my other golf stuff.
So yeah, dunno what to do really, not sure playmoregolf makes sense really, but full membership is quite costly certainly if I wanted to do both, and if I didn't like the club for whatever reason feels like throwing away the £250 joining fee. But it is a much nicer course to play than my local,
much nicer.
And so ends the wall of text...
. Was having a good back nine until a double/double finish took the gloss off.