Russell’s Review of Birkdale Golf Club on 7/28/12

Birkdale Golf Club

Date: 7/28/12 Sat Afternoon
Overall Rating:

"Below average"
Conditions: Poor - significant issues
Pace: > 5 Hours
Cost: $20
Username: Russell
Profile: Frequent Golfer (about once a month)
Handicap: 6.0
Today's Score: 76
See All Reviews by this user

First time playing at Birkdale. Used an ezlinks tee time so it was very reasonable. Arrived to find tee times delayed 40 minutes becuase of an earlier shotgun tournament followed by a large group outing. Understandable for a Saturday – I guess. It was a terribly slow start (two groups waiting on #2) but slowly picked up.

I really liked the layout but conditions were poor. The biggest problem were the bent greens. They appeared to have been aerated awhile ago but were not coming back. Most were bad – some terrible. I know bent greens struggle this time of year but bunkers were washed out, areas of the course were overgrown, downed trees were adjacent to greens, etc. Unfortunately, this seems to be the level of care typical at Carolina Trail courses. I had heard that Birkdale used to be in great condition under its previous owner and I hope it gets back to that level someday because I like the layout.

Comments (2)

B-Man
at 7/30/12 12:38pm
Thanks for the review, Russell. Someone recently mentioned to me that Birkdale was in bad shape due to a change in ownership — which I had not heard about. It’s too bad this was your first time, because it is usually a nice treat and a fun round when it’s in good shape. If anyone else has more information about the change, please post it.
Jova007200
at 9/12/12 10:23pm
While I know I’m commenting late, I gotta say the last time I played Birkdale the conditions were quite good. A lot of golf courses are suffering because of the drastically lower turnout they get vs before 2008. They get busy, but it has not recovered to the levels of “attendance” as they used to get.It seems to suggest they don’t have enough $$ coming in to cover expenses, so the conditions suffer.