I played here today and an employee told me that Ratcliff Golf Services lost their contract with this course, not sure if they lost the contract with all the courses they manage . Troon Golf won the bidding.

The Harry Jones course (formerly Renaissance Park) re-opens this Friday, July 2nd with their brand new Bermuda grass greens. Tee times are available ranging from $37 to $45 this weekend. If anyone checks it out, please post a review and update the group on conditions. Here's the email announcement:

Harry Jones Golf Course Re-Opens Friday July 2nd

Just got some very interesting and exciting news... three Charlotte-area courses will be getting new Bermuda greens this year:

Harry L. Jones Sr. Course (formerly Renaissance Park)
Tradition Golf Club
Birkdale Golf Club

Exact timing is not set yet but I should be able to confirm dates within a week or two. These will likely be summer to early Fall projects, similar to the renovation of The Divide last year.

The Harry Jones renovation is one step in a long-range master plan that sounds amazing. I can't share details just yet but what I've heard so far sounds really cool!

Stay tuned!

Played Renaissance 9/28 and the greens are in terrible shape. Many dead spots and various lengths of grass on the greens. It's impossible to putt and feel that anything you're doing is going to make a difference as there is too much interference with the state of the greens for any putt to be accurate. The fairways were fine. The bunkers were actually very nicely kept and well-raked. I felt like someone there felt so bad about the greens being terrible that they thought they would at least make the bunkers playable.
Emerald Lake, which we played two weeks ago had bad greens as well. Almost as bad as Renaissance. Lots of crab grass on them and the crab grass didn't get mown down with the other grass so many putts you're putting through pieces of crab grass sticking up. Plus, lots of ! dead spots. The back 9 was better than the front, but not great.
It's a shame. These both used to be decent courses (Emerald Lake used to be really nice). It's been one of the rainiest and cooler summers in the 15 years I've lived here. If you can't keep your greens up this summer, when will you be able too? Plus, they were both way too expensive for what you get - even on tee off or golf now - I think we paid $70 bucks for 2 people for Emerald Lake and $50 for Renaissance. If we had just paid at the club house we would have given up and asked for our money back. Not sure how that works on the discount web-sites. They need to charge a lot less if their courses are in such bad shape.
Tega Cay was really nice. Worth any extra money.

I have a good relationship with Ratcliffe Golf -- they run Renaissance Park, Charles T Myers and Revolution Park, among other courses around town. Jason Rockhold from Ratcliffe responded to the recent poor review posted on this site. The full text is below:

Dear Slowmofo,

Thank you for your comments. We take our guest’s opinions very seriously and appreciate your candor in sharing any negative experiences you had. It is our goal to utilize your comments to make our golf course a better experience to all of our golfers that play with us.

I would like to apologize for your poor experience with our fairways and a few of the greens at Renaissance Park. We are in the middle of some great projects that foc! us on equal coverage of water and leveling out some areas to make them more playable.

Fairways:
I have included a couple of photos (Photo 1, Photo 2) of the sodding process that has started Tuesday September 2, 2014 that is covering the areas of dirt to level out some areas that have compacted. We are working with the county to continue to make Renaissance Park Golf Course a great experience for everyone who plays it. In addition, we have purchased some new equipment to keep the fairway and rough length consistent and playable. These new machines help the grass grow as it adapts to the consistent length of cut.

Greens:
In addition to the resodding, we have recently installed a new water pump house to get better water coverage on t! he course. We will be aerifying our greens next week to get th! e ultimate use of this new tool. With the new pump house, we will get a stronger and faster recovery of our bent greens. As you know, bent grass greens typically experience problems of heat stress and wear during the summer. The desired growing conditions for bent grass are soil temperatures between 50-65 degrees and air temperatures of 60-75 degrees. As soil temperatures and air temperatures continue to rise into early fall, there is difficulty keeping these greens at optimal condition.

Knowing this, we offer bounce back coupons for $20 off your next round of golf during this time period.

We expect after aerification, a short healing period, and cooler temperatures to see great results from our end of summer projects.

Please come back in a few weeks as my guest, there is no doubt you will see the positive results from our labors.

Have a great day!

Jason Rockhold, MBA, PGA
Director of Marketing/PGA Instructor
Ratcliffe Golf Services, Inc.
rockholdpro@aol.com

New here but I have played it twice in a week. Not bad. I would descibe green speed as medium. Can be aggresive without flying past the whole but not really slow. Roll pretty true. Greens a little hard so not going to be fixing very many ball marks. As for the course it's in okay condition but I am not terribly picky. Called last Sunday morning at 730 A.M. and got a 4 out at 9 A.M. because it was wide open. Could have teed off earlier so apparently not very busy.

I agree with Karl......In fact, I think all of the courses around the Charlotte area lie about their conditions on a regular basis. I refuse to ever golf again at Emerald Lake because of their staff and cocky attitude. I just recently played Renaissance a week ago and specifically asked the guy behind the counter the conditions of the greens. His response......"excellent, best in the area". Well, the front nine was "okay" at best and the back nine had several greens that were in "sub-par" condition. I have heard all the excuses as to why the greens are suffering, but if you ask me, it is just plain ignorance. What else really upsets me is that the courses "play" dumb and make no effort to adjust their greens fees to make it a fair deal. I bet none of the course GM's would buy a new car with just primer on it...! ....I feel ripped off everytime I golf.

Played Renaissance today. It's in decent shape, about what you would expect. Not great, but OK for the money. Watch out for the cartpaths though. They are really in rough shape; you'll rupture a disc in your back if you go too fast.

Just some comments on some of the courses I've played in the last couple of months.

Renaissance - completely disagree with the comments earlier. The only issue I had with this course is that it's sometimes hard to find a flat spot on the tee.

Emerald lake - completely agree with the last comment. Not going back.

Regent Park - played there Wednesday. Greens were a little fuzzy and slow but the course is in great shape.

Springfield - Always in great shape.

Cleghorn Plantation - made the drive and was dissapointed. Course is gorgeous. Great views, elevation changes, etc. Tees, fairways, bunkers all in great shape. Greens were terrible. They have something growing besides grass. It made them virtually unputtable and ruined the round.

Olde Sycamore - always in great shape.

River Oaks - greens were very good. Tee to green, not so much. Needs some work, Not worth the drive unless you're north of town.

Glen Oaks - I really liked this course. They seem to take a lot of pride in this course. Some really pretty holes and at least one where you tee off across a road. Worth the drive.

Deer Brook - I wasn't all that impressed but I was out there after some bad weather. I'll try it again before passing judgement.

Rock Barn - Played the Jones course and it was great as you might expect from a course that is a Senior Tour stop.

Charlotte Golf Links - It's horrible. Don't bother.

Moorseville Muni - You hear different things about hhis course but I liked it. A few of the tees needed a lot work but I thought the fairways and greens were very good. They seem to do a lot of 1st Tee/ Junior golf up there. There were lots of kids walking the course Mother's Day.

Have played Eagle Chase, Fox Den and The Warrior also. All were in good shape and worth going to play.

Playing Edgewater in the morning. I'll update my last comments about it.

A comment about Ballantyne Resort. They really aren't interested in attracting local golfers over there. It's all about packaging rounds with rooms and corporate outings.

I thought they were going to do some work at Renaissance when they got taken over? You are right, the front nine is just awful. I like the back 9, but it is priced way too high for the condition it is in.

4/19/09 - Played course for first time this year. Terrible condition, way overpriced. Fairways play like asphalt, greens are weak at best...

We played Renaissance Park today and to say the least were very unhappy in the course conditions. Fairways were washed out with a few under construction. Greens are hard and fast. They increased the fee's for the holiday, which should have been less than the everyday fee due to the condition of the course. The staff was nice and the hotdogs were good though.

I played Renaissance Park Golf Course on 4/22/04 and it was awful. The fairways and roughs were in bad shape, bunkers full of mud, and blind shots galore. On many holes a perfect drive just falls sharply off the fairway into the woods. Our group also ran into three rats on the course (it used to be a landfill). I recommend turning this track back into a landfill.