Shaker Run Golf Club (Lebanon, OH on 09/09/12)

This was stop #12 on my road trip (09/09/12), but more importantly it was the 42nd state that I have golfed in, how crazy is that?!? I got into town late the night before and did not have much time to research a place to play so I took a quick look at the website and saw that the course has been rated as one of the top courses in the state of Ohio in past years so I thought that I would give it a try. My options were limited as to the available courses on golfnow as I needed to play really early before my scheduled afternoon round so when I saw a time on golfnow for ~$40 I snatched it up. I checked in and the starter provided a free yardage book which I thought was a nice gesture so as far as the service goes, it was good. Normally, I do not review the course’s service as it is not a big deal to me, but I have to find something positive about the experience because the course was in such bad shape. More on that in a bit though. There are 3 nines here and I ended up playing the Woodlands and the Meadows from the blue tees at 71.6/129/6599. The Woodlands plays just as the name indicates and I thought it was very charming. It had doglegs, elevation changes, risk/reward holes, and required accuracy on both the tee shots and approaches. It would have been a blast to play if it was in just even average condition. Many times I found myself trying to figure out which tree or set of trees that I needed to play over and there were some really good holes. For example, hole #3 is a downhill mid length par 4 has a blind tee shot to a green guarded by water in the front and bunkers in the back. Hole #5 is a long par 3 that drops a club and a half with water on the left and then #9 is a good challenge with water all down the right. There really were some visually interesting and fun to play designs on the Woodlands side as it had narrow fairways and small greens. My back nine was on the Meadows and I believe that is the newest addition to the course. As that name indicates it was more open, less hilly, and a completely different feel. It took the tension away from a missed shot and was a relaxing closing compared to my front nine. A few homes came into play on the final holes of the Meadows, but I would not consider it a community course. Really this is where the good about the course stops. The maintenance was horrible, and by horrible I mean the worst of any of the 50 or so golf courses that I have played so far this year. It was almost “walk off” bad for me, but because I would have had nothing else to do I stuck it out. Putting on the greens on the Woodlands was similar to putting on dirt, maybe one third of each green was grass and even at that the grass was sanded over. These greens putted much worse than recently aerated greens (and these had not been aerated). Any putt over tap in range bumped off line. The greens on the Meadows were better, tolerable would be a better word, but still towards the bottom of what I have putted on this year. To add to the frustration, I started at 8am and it took 5 hours to play which was a tortuous pace considering the course conditions. I would not recommend playing here until a local can advise that the conditions have improved.

Woodlands #1: