Kimberton Golf Club

Course was in good shape for winter golf, will be back in spring to play.

everything hard as a rock making sticking approach shots nearly impossible!

The greens were in very good shape. The rest of the course was dry as you could expect with the drought we’re having.

The course was in poor condition mostly due to the lack of rain. It has not rained in weeks. The greens couldn’t hold a ball. Putting was ridiculously fast.
The fairways were dried out and when a ball hit the ground it bounced like crazy and then because of then rough not being cut you couldn’t find your ball. All due to the lack of water. I won’t be playing any golf until we get some rain. It was not enjoyable to play even on a beautiful day as it was.

Greens were recently aerated and covered with sand. There is more sand on the greens than in the traps making them inconsistent in speed and break.. I would wait 2 weeks before playing.

1. asphalt cart paths are falling apart and are bumpy, sim
with gravel ones
2. lots of weeds in the fairway
3. fairways had lots of random bumps , a rough ride in the cart
4. greens were just plugged and sanded, excessive amounts of sand needed to be removed
5. ranger did little to facilitate quick play that we noticed.
6. no ball cleaners
7. periodic trash cans, not at every tee box.
8. lot of ugly dead trees need to be removed

The course layout is fun, and has withstood the test of time. It’s really cool to see Kimberton add in the Championship tees this season, and I hope they continue to upkeep that as it helps modernize the course and add on another 200 or so yards to get it over 6500 yards. Plus, having a tee option above 70 course rating is nice.

However, the rough is atrocious. I am all for a challenge of tall rough, but it’s not just the length of the rough but the content of it that’s frustrates me. Majority of the rough at kimberton is spotty crab grass. The result? When it’s dried out, the underlying soil turns to clay, and your ball is ricocheting into penalty areas or farther than where it landed. The other kicker of this rough, even if your ball settles in this rough, you are gonna have a tough time finding it not only due to the length of the grass, but also due to the crab grass being so spotty, your ball 5/10 times is sitting on a clay dirt patch vs sitting level on a bed of grass. The result, you see the tops of the crab grass when searching for your ball, but your ball is actually sitting an inch below the top of the crab grass on a batch of dry clay.

Lost 4 balls this weekend on my back 9 because of this, I know these balls landed in bounds and should have been found, but i consistently found myself searching crab grass not near any penalty areas on several holes.

I want to play this course layout many times a year, but the frustration of losing balls when I shouldn’t lose them is just not something I’m willing to incur. I suck enough, I don’t need course conditions to help me there. If they did some work in their rough and made grass grow more consistently, I would play this course on a monthly basis.

Aerate the roughs, and please work on the crab grass. Crab grass is fine if you have grass fully grown around it, but the splotches of dirt/clay just make it unplayable in my book.