Thornbury Golf Centre - Marlwood Course

some friends and I decided to play this course on August bank holiday Monday as our own course was out of action due to a function we weren't involved in. I was looking forward to playing thornbury again as we hadn't played there for a couple of years and thought it would be a nice change. how wrong could we be !!
firstly the welcome from the pro shop on arrival was less than friendly to say the least, the guy serving us was sullen and didn't seem very welcoming at all. whether this was because we were non members or not I don't know but it wasn't a great start ! to make matters worse they couldn't even supply us with proper score cards, they were just flimsy pieces of paper with the score card photocopied onto it ! he put it down to problems with their suppliers which seemed a bit of a poor excuse to be honest. I then made my way to the restaurant area to order a bacon and sausage roll and coffee to take out onto the course. the young lady serving was very friendly and the food arrived fairly quickly which was a good plus point. the food was nice if a little on the expensive side (over £8 for a roll and coffee !) but the coffee was very poor. I didn't drink it until out on the course so had no chance to return it, it was supposed to be a cappuccino but was just a cup of frothy hot milk containing no coffee ! maybe they had a faulty machine so I'll give them the benefit of the doubt. anyway, food, drink and service issues aside we were there to play golf and enjoy our round so we headed out onto the course. thought we should get a few practice putts in beforehand so the putting green was calling, if you can call it that ! rutted, drag marks, covered in sand, totally unusable. "don't worry" I said to the lads, "the greens on the course won't be like this" . wrong again ! every green from 1 to 18 was basically a lottery when putting. you had to massively over hit every putt just to get it close then it would veer off line as soon as it hit a drag Mark. also there was more sand on the greens than in the bunkers which were also unplayable by the way, rock hard underneath with a thin sprinkling of sand on top. fairways were very patchy with hundreds of pitch marks left unrepaired. I know I've waffled on a bit here and given thornbury bit of a character assassination but I can't believe a course could be in this bad condition in the height of summer when we have had perfect weather for maintenance. aside from the poor service and unfriendly welcome, which we've encountered there before by the way, we were still willing to give it a go as it's more about the golf than anything else. I've never written an online review about anything before but felt compelled to comment on this as I think thornbury really need to up their game and treat the paying customers with a bit more respect. an all round bad experience and a disappointing end to the bank holiday weekend. oh well, work tomorrow !

Nice basic course. Easy and quick to play members pretty rude. Booking system and tee times should be monitored better as we was 40 mins stood on the first tee waiting to play. Then we was a two ball following members for 11 holes before they let us through. Slow play. First few greens for late August very wet. Rest of course great though. Golf club and services really good.

Enjoyable round of golf, majority of the holes are as you see them, greens are large with big bunkers.

Course was great. Fairways in good condition. Would say the tee boxes needed some better upkeep and the greens were inconsistent, bunkers were not raked and pitch marks on greens were abit out of hand. Members on the course played very slow despite having buggies I think rules of search times and slow play should be reiterated too them.

Overall loverly course and would definitely play again.

Our teeofftimes booking hadn’t made it through to the golf centre so we had to tee off an hour later which meant we couldn’t complete our round!

Lovely course, enough for every handicap ... just pace of play remains an issue ...

If you can see that people are up against you and waiting on every tee then please wave them through ...
spoils the day otherwise ..

Good course though ...

This is a great course which is pretty forgiving but with enough there to make you think twice about just reaching for the driver off the tee. Great weather andbreaking 90 for the first time, a very satisfying round of golf. My only critiscism was the state of the greens, which has been tanged Andy heavily sanded, making them really bumpy. Great day though

Played this course quite a bit now and never lets me down. The staff are great and the course is always in great condition. Not too hard but certainly not easy. Will be returning for sure in the very near future.

I was not greeted with the warmest of welcomes, I had booked a one ball but I was keen to join others for a round. On the first tee I asked a gent if I could join him, he just said no you play by yourself.
I caught caught up to a two bit sadly they weren’t keen on me joining. Play was backing up and a fourball would not let anybody through. At one point 2 two balls played the same hole at the same time, and all four were looking for lost balls. Not once did they signal for me to play through, and on the back 9 I watched them look for 11 balls without letting me play through. Just shy of four hours to play 18 by myself! Two birdies though!!

Firstly the course should have been closed. Greens OK but everywhere else very very wet and muddy. Little or no attempt to protect fairways, etc. Going to be a mess for months.
Second they ignore any tee of time you have booked. At our booked time there were at least 5 other groups waiting to go. More than half hours wait. No Marshals to help things along. Shan't bother again.

Really liked this course and look forward to return when the weather improves and everything dry is a little. Lots of variation, with every hole providing a different challenge.

Given the recent weather conditions the course was in great condition with the greens having drained really well.

Nice course nice layout good facilities good putting green 3rd best greens I've played on all year looked like a nice layout in the restaurant area . I played really well 1 over after 12 , 4 birdies playing off 9 then I get on the 4th hole and get held up by a load of sausages they didn't even call me through bogied the next 5 double bogied the last

Enjoyable mid week round of golf. The course was in good condition and made more challenging with the rough allowed to grow a longer. Two of us went round in less than 3 hours so a a good pace was possible.

Our booking was for 2pm but a Society in front had slowed the following players. By the time we reached the seventh tee we were up behind those waiting on the tee's. From this point onwards the game slowed up considerably mainly due to society players taking too long to look for lost balls (everyone loses balls but minutes were lost on virtually every hole) Even on one tee the players stopped and took shelter from a downpour instead of putting 'wets' on and continuing - somewhat frustrating! After the game the restaurant appeared 'rammed' so we went to a nearby pub but overall a good afternoon.