White Clay Creek - Review

[Buddyjay]

Delaware

I finally got to play White Clay Creek at Delaware Park. The place gives you a feeling of playing at a private club. It is that nice. The service and hospitality are fantastic. Beautiful pro shop and the bar/grille is really good with the grille having a huge deck (where you can eat) overlooking the practice green and Delaware Park.
The practice range is also excellent with grass hitting areas. The club also has two chipping/pitching greens that you can hit from 50 yards and in. Both in great shape.

The course itself is tough. For August, it is in very good shape. You can't walk this course even if you want too. Not that it's hilly. The drive to some of the tee boxes are looooong. One hole, it was 7/10th's of a mile from green to the next tee. In fact, during this drive you are right next to the workout track for the horses at Delaware State Park.
Many drives from the tee box are long also since their is so much trouble in front of the tee boxes that they did not build the road over the trouble. They built it around the trouble making for some lenghty cart rides.

The greens are nice and fairly large. They run true but have some dings/dents from people not fixing ball marks. A lot of holes are welI protected and a challenge to get too. Also the pin placements were tight on a lot of holes. This is something that bothers me. I can understand a couple of holes having tight pin placements, but when there is more than five, I feel that is unfair to the average golfer. The game is tough enough and this course is tough enough. Sometimes courses overdue pin placements and take some of the fun out of it. We are not pros and many holes had pin placements that were similar to a Sunday round at a pro tournament.

I played from the Black Tees (6500 yards) and it is a challenge. There is water and trouble on EVERY hole. The carts have a GPS system that you MUST refer to so it can let you know how far to get over trouble (I found this out the hard way).

The one thing I liked was the tight fairways off to the sides of the greens. Most courses have fairways leading up to the front of the green and rough all around. Many greens here will have tight fairways on i.e. the back right side for about 20 yards giving it that St. Andrews feel where you could putt if you want.

Although the course is tough, the fairways are generous, BUT YOU MUST HIT THE BALL STRAIGHT. There is trouble everywhere. From the black tees, it flet like every hole there was a force carry (sometimess 200+ yards) to the fairways. The white, senior and red tees are more forgiving. Lots of well protected greens with large beautiful bunkers. This is real target golf. If you stray a lot off the tees, I wouldn't recommned this course. I was teamed up with a young guy that hit a nice ball but pushed a lot of his tee shots to the right. He must have lost about 20 golf balls. I hit fairly straight drives and even I was afraid to use good golf balls.

If you want to play a beautiful course that is challenging, this is it. Next time I play I am going to make a day/evening of it. You can play golf in the morning, shower in thier absolutely beautiful locker rooms. Have lunch on their deck. Then go over to watch the horse races and/or gamble at the casino. Now that's a fun day.

One other note: They added one more nice touch, if you're a cigar smoker. They have a table top humidor at the end of the bar. They only had two brands of cigars. One being a Hoyo (my favorite). On many other golf courses, it is a hit/miss if you are going to get a good cigar that is not too old and dried out. Here, every cigar is sealed in a plastic pouch with its own humidity "package". So it's guaranteed to be fresh... and it was! Also in every package is a 2 for 1 beer coupon. So, on the course, I had my Hoyo and the beverage cart came around no less than four times! Sometimes the beverage cart is THE most important part of a course. :drinks:

[jwkde]

Whie Clay is one of my favorite courses. I had heard that it was struggling due the heat etc and that #8 was really bad.

I will have to head over there soon

Thanks

[jumanji]

Thanks for the review. Living in Philly this has been on my 'must play' list for awhile now.

[o_man]

[quote name='jwkde' timestamp='1281465428' post='2630542']
Whie Clay is one of my favorite courses. I had heard that it was struggling due the heat etc and that #8 was really bad.

[/quote]

I played WCC about a week ago and as I recall, #8 was in good shape. There is some browning in a few fairways, but greens are OK.

As the OP mentioned, great practice facility.

[o_man]

[quote name='jumanji' timestamp='1282833051' post='2662965']
Thanks for the review. Living in Philly this has been on my 'must play' list for awhile now.
[/quote]

Beautiful course. Just make sure to play from the right set of tees (depending if you hit the ball an "average" distance). On a few holes, there is a [i]big[/i] difference between the black and white tees (no blue). Can make for an enjoyable round or a real grind.

If you haven't played Glen Mills, you should add it to your must play list as well.

[MattyKrack17]

im not paying $70 to play there, i would if it was cheaper, but i can go on golfnow and get 2 rounds at rock manor, or deerfield for that price... just my .02, plus i give them enough money at the blackjack table haha