San Diego/Oceanside Late August Questions

[GCU23]

Hi Everyone, we have a trip coming up in late August basically 4 golf days with 8 of us that's kind of built around the Torrey Courses.  We're hoping to get in 36 playing both Torrey courses one of the days and then the rest we have on the list are kind of the obvious ones: Maderas, Aviara, Carlsbad Crossings, and possibly Goat Hill one of those days as well.

 

The question I have is about those "other" courses that I listed.  When I search the forum threads, it's always Torrey, Maderas, and Aviara are must plays.....but would any of you suggest swapping one out for an easier track?  Between the 8 of us we have a fairly broad range of abilities with two in the 5 and under hdcp, 3 in the 9-13 range, and 3 in the 15-20 range.  I've looked at the flyovers for Maderas and while I know it's basically universally recommended, it also looks quite tough.  I want all our guys to have a great time, so would you suggest swapping out Maderas for something like Arrowood or Encinitas Ranch (and I also have no idea if these are any easier after looking at them briefly, lol, I just know they've been suggested as well).  

 

We're staying in SD Tuesday as everyone arrives and the golf is Wednesday thru Saturday when we're staying in Oceanside.  The availability of the Torrey courses and their tee times will dictate most of what the plan is, but we were thinking Maderas Wednesday since it's generally on the way between the SD and Oceanside.  Sorta.

 

Any other thoughts that you'd like to share would be welcome as well.  

[enfuego]

Encinitas Ranch is nicknamed Easy Ranch, it would be a good course for your group range. Encinitas residents book up everything every night but they do let you pay for more advanced bookings. Arrowood and The Crossings are the next logical choices. Goat Hill is fun but will be tough for the higher caps. Don't bother with La Costa, only the resort course (Legends) is open and not in the best shape. Champions is under a full year restoration before they host three straight NCAA championships. Twin Oaks would be a serviceable backup plan with Rancho Bernardo Inn a less desirable backup plan. Don't recommend St. Mark (now Links at Lakehouse).

 

Since you're staying in Oceanside getting to the San Clemente courses wouldn't be bad if you run out of options.

Edited May 18, 2023 by enfuego

[sharkiesj]

Maderas is a very difficult golf course, with a few holes just plain stupid hard for no good reason other than Johnny Miller designed it and he demands golfers hit perfect shots or get completely screwed over.  Goat Hill is fun because it’s not long but it’s very quirky and actually a few holes are quite difficult.  However, the vibe is very laid back and that rules more than the difficulty of the place.  Coronado GC is chill, fun and inviting of all handicaps, but maybe a bit of a drive over the bridge.  

[Damenace613]

Arrowood is a good choice to avoid driving around too much. It'll be reasonably priced during the week and should be able to get tee times. 

[GCU23]

Thank you guys for your input, I appreciate it very much.

 

Do you think that Maderas is a must play?  Since it'll be essentially our first round of the trip, we're thinking of maybe doing a 2 man scramble to let everyone kind of ease into the trip, it also potentially mitigates the difficulty concern.  Thoughts?

 

Also, with our hopes of getting 36 in one day at Torrey, do you all think that having 5.5 hours in between a morning tee time at the South (which we'll probably walk) and an afternoon time on the North is enough?

[Damenace613]

Maderas is a nice course but their rates have gone up quite a bit. If you're going to do something more casual then you may not want to necessarily go out of your way since Oceanside is not close to Maderas. 

 

I recommend walking TP as many times it's cart path only. However, the pull carts they have are horrendous (in my opinion). If you play early on the South then that should be enough time. If you have more time in between rounds, then the Drugstore burger or Sloppy Joe at the grill are good choices.

[GCU23]

I appreciate the replies Damenace!

 

I think we've settled on playing Maderas as we'd rather not miss one of the places that is so consistently recommended.  On interesting comment we received from a cousin of one of our guys (the cousin live in the SD area) is that Arrowood is a much better track than Crossings at Carlsbad.  That surprised me as I hadn't heard of Arrowood until doing research for this trip whereas Crossings I've seen mentioned plenty.

 

Anyone have thoughts on these two?

[enfuego]

I prefer Arrowood to Crossings but both are usually in good shape and fun. Crossings can be a little frustrating if you're only playing it once. Lots of tiered greens with big slopes. They leave greens a little slower than most so balls don't run off. A few lines off the tee can be tricky unless you've played it before or with someone who has. These are nit picking small issues only to separate the two. I still put Crossings above RB Inn and Twin Oaks.

[Damenace613]

3 hours ago, enfuego said:

I prefer Arrowood to Crossings but both are usually in good shape and fun. Crossings can be a little frustrating if you're only playing it once. Lots of tiered greens with big slopes. They leave greens a little slower than most so balls don't run off. A few lines off the tee can be tricky unless you've played it before or with someone who has. These are nit picking small issues only to separate the two. I still put Crossings above RB Inn and Twin Oaks.

This is a good summary. Crossings has some quirky holes but you should have fun with either one. I would pick Arrowood over Crossings. 

[puttnforthe8]

@GCU23  A course not mentioned is Coronado.  I would call that a best of all worlds.

 

I will toss IMO to the mix and say Maderas is not worth the money or displeasure of it's difficulty.  It is an decent course, but myself and most of the group I play with from AZ (60+), have no desire to play there on our trips.  But we do because it is Troon managed and we got a big discount for the large group.   But when the discussion of just playing more rounds comes up, Maderas is nowhere on anyones mind.  It's just not fun, it's not a picturesque area, and the course is 60+% "hokey".   Sorry - It's not that good of a course.

 

 

[Shades234]

Two notes on Torrey.

• The North Course is punching their greens on 8/29.
• If you are committed to your trip dates already, book your Torrey tee times now. Bookings open 90 days in advance. 90 days from today is 8/30.

[GCU23]

Yes, we're set on dates and got lucky on the punch schedule.  Originally it was set to be punched while we were there, but the golf gods were looking out for us and it was bumped back a week.

 

We actually just booked the times this past Saturday for when we're gonna be there.  One thing we learned is that the tee times for the last day on the calendar that shows tee times are posted at 7pm California time that night (which will make sense when you're looking at the Torrey booking site).  So if you look today, August 29th is the last day showing as an option to book, but there are zero times showing available.  That's consistently the case with the last day showing up, and those times will populate at 7pm tonight.  Just something to be aware of, and if you have questions, their support staff that answer calls were great.  We were online at 7 Saturday and booked what we needed.  Also, there's a nice $188 cost for the pleasure of booking a 4some in advance.  Surely that's applied to the cost of the round is what you must be thinking.....nope, just to make the tee time and immediately non-refundable.  It is what it is....

 

Thanks for the commentary on Crossings vs. Arrowood!  The descriptions are helpful.  And puttnfor8, thanks for the Coronado rec and the notes on Maderas.  We're staying in Oceanside so Coronado isn't really on the list as we don't want to drive back to SD to play it.  I know that rationale probably falls short when we're clearly driving 45ish minutes to play Maderas......I have no defense for that argument, lol. (insert shoulder shrug emoji)

 

So here's the lineup thoughts after figuring out Torrey times.  Only Torrey can be booked at this point so we hope the rest will fall into place when they open up times.

 

Tuesday - Arrive and stay in SD

Wednesday - Morning round at Torrey South / Afternoon at Torrey North 

Thursday - Afternoon round at Aviara (twilight starts at 1 and is like $100 cheaper so we'll have an easy morning to sleep off the previous full day of Torrey)

Friday - Mid-Morning round at Maderas (maybe miss some traffic)

Saturday - Morning round at Arrowood possible afternoon round at Goat Hill

Sunday - Head home with our passion buckets full

[BirdieWonder]

I am planning a similar trip in late October, but the Torrey maintenance schedule will likely affect our plans there.  I'm on the brink of tee times opening up, but can't decide if I want to try to play both.  The North course will have 2-3 weeks to heal, while the South course will just have been done.

 

I would appreciate you posting what you think of the other courses you picked.

[qtlaw]

Just got back from 3 day trip in SD set up by my buddy.  Played TP (South), Aviara and The Grand (at Fairmont).

 

While the South was burned out (to prepare for overseeding), still a fantastic track but surprisingly #3 for me (I've played it over 6 times); 

Aviara, fantastic shape, interesting, but not the biggest fan of Fazio fairways; 

The Grand is fantastic, every hole is its own separate destination, you cannot see any other hole, plus its in a gorgeous canyon, maintained beautifully.

[sharkiesj]

1 hour ago, qtlaw said:

Just got back from 3 day trip in SD set up by my buddy.  Played TP (South), Aviara and The Grand (at Fairmont).

 

While the South was burned out (to prepare for overseeding), still a fantastic track but surprisingly #3 for me (I've played it over 6 times); 

Aviara, fantastic shape, interesting, but not the biggest fan of Fazio fairways; 

The Grand is fantastic, every hole is its own separate destination, you cannot see any other hole, plus its in a gorgeous canyon, maintained beautifully.

Fazio didn’t do Aviara. It’s an AP designed course. 

[BirdieWonder]

To follow up on my trip, my son (around a 4) and myself (13) played 9 holes at the Crossings on the day we arrived, as it was really close to the resort we were staying at and we got a decent rate knowing we were only playing 9 holes.  It does have some quirky holes, but it was a good place to play after having gotten up at 3 am Eastern time and flying cross country.  It ended up being a 20 hour day, so sleep was not an issue.  A few people we met later in the trip told us the back 9 at The Crossings was even harder/quirkier.  I might go back at the start of a trip like we did, but I'm not sure if I'd do 18 there.

 

On Sunday am we drove out to Maderas and had a great day there.  We got there a little early and there is a really nice and large practice area, including a few spacious short game areas.  I thought the course was fun to play, the conditions were really good and the staff was very engaged.  We had a really nice day there and had some appetizers and drinks in the bar after.

 

On Monday we played at Aviara and it was probably condition wise equal to Maderas.  Again a solid staff and we had fun playing there.   The driving range is smaller than Maderas and they use limited flight balls and I'm pretty sure you were hitting off mats.  Both Maderas and Aviara have an interesting layout and I thought challenging, but not punishing.  Still very scenic and more homes (think large) in view on the course compared to Maderas.  Didn't have anything to eat or drink afterwards as we were headed out to dinner.

 

While planning the trip I had gone back and forth on Torrey due to the maintenance and decided against it.  We did stop there on Tuesday am (10/24) and the North course looked in pretty decent shape while the South course looked to be in pretty tough shape.  We ended up getting 12 holes in late Weds afternoon and I was really glad we did it.  While the conditions were still not great, it was playable and busy.  A few young families in front of us lead to a bit of slow play, but I knew we weren't going to get much more than 9 holes in.  We ended up playing 12, which was perfect as the 12th hole comes back into the Pro Shop area.  We both had pars in the dark on 12, so it was a perfect end to our trip.  The military aircraft flying over and near the course plus the scenery made for a really nice afternoon.

 

Thanks for al the other post's to the OP's ?

Edited November 13, 2023 by BirdieWonder