I am a fan of the 500 club and often visit this course as a break in scenery from my home MVCC course. Today, however, was by far the most unpleasant experience I have had at the 500 club. I do not often play late twilight hours, but today, I was invited by three colleagues to play your course, so I obliged. We arrived and checked in at 6 pm. We purchased our round, ($28) and proceeded to play, or try to play nine holes. For the most part, the round was enjoyable, despite not having any beverage or drink service in triple-digit temperatures, but that was not a concern for us. What concerned me and why I am writing today is because of the rude manner in which we were treated trying to rush our round with approximately 1.5 hours of sunlight remaining. They wanted to close up shop early and did not inform us of that fact. After a certain time, only teenagers run the golf course and do not understand long-term market share or basic customer service principles, which pay their hourly wage.

Nevertheless, we were rudely escorted off to the club house and not even allowed to drop our bags off at the bag drop area.

I've heard of some pretty bad golf experiences with post-round play, but this one takes the cake. Absolutely unacceptable to be mistreated in this manner. We would not have mind if we were politely asked to finished or if we would rush our play to finish by 7:30 p.m., but instead, we were forced and guided back to the club house like a bunch of kids (all four of us are successful executives working with fortune 500 companies in Arizona). More so, this would have been acceptable had we known to return the carts by 7:30 p.m. Why would the pro shop employees sell us a round at 6 p.m. without informing us that the carts had to be returned at 7:30 p.m.? To communicate the time expectation with two holes remaining in the round is absurd. That important factorial is beyond me, but not the root cause of our complaint with this customer service -- it was the manner in which we were treated after receiving this new information and forced off of the course.

Sadly, I have been playing here for quite some time, but after my experience this afternoon, I will find it hard to return when there are much better courses in Arizona who will not only provide exceptional greens, but an exceptional experience in-and-out of the pro shop.

Customer Service

I am a fan of the 500 club and often visit this course as a break in scenery from my home MVCC course. Today, however, was by far the most unpleasant experience I have had at the 500 club. I do not often play late twilight hours, but today, I was invited by three colleagues to play your course, so I obliged. We arrived and checked in at 6 pm. We purchased our round, ($28) and proceeded to play, or try to play nine holes. For the most part, the round was enjoyable, despite not having any beverage or drink service in triple-digit temperatures, but that was not a concern for us. What concerned me and why I am writing today is because of the rude manner in which we were treated trying to rush our round with approximately 1.5 hours of sunlight remaining. They wanted to close up shop early and did not inform us of that fact. After a certain time, only teenagers run the golf course and do not understand long-term market share or basic customer service principles, which pay their hourly wage.

Nevertheless, we were rudely escorted off to the club house and not even allowed to drop our bags off at the bag drop area.

I've heard of some pretty bad golf experiences with post-round play, but this one takes the cake. Absolutely unacceptable to be mistreated in this manner. We would not have mind if we were politely asked to finished or if we would rush our play to finish by 7:30 p.m., but instead, we were forced and guided back to the club house like a bunch of kids (all four of us are successful executives working with fortune 500 companies in Arizona). More so, this would have been acceptable had we known to return the carts by 7:30 p.m. Why would the pro shop employees sell us a round at 6 p.m. without informing us that the carts had to be returned at 7:30 p.m.? To communicate the time expectation with two holes remaining in the round is absurd. That important factorial is beyond me, but not the root cause of our complaint with this customer service -- it was the manner in which we were treated after receiving this new information and forced off of the course.

Sadly, I have been playing here for quite some time, but after my experience this afternoon, I will find it hard to return when there are much better courses in Arizona who will not only provide exceptional greens, but an exceptional experience in-and-out of the pro shop.

The Good:
Fun, relatively easy/non-punative desert layout, very hard to lose a ball.
The contours around the greens make for many interesting short game challenges. The deep grass bunkers (in addition to sand) are a nice feature. The price is low compared to most competitive courses. The driving range is nice. Also there are no homes on the course, which is great. Very scenic, this is a very nice place to spend the day.
The bad:
Course conditions were poor in early April 2009. The course has not been watered as much it should be, and there are a number of brown patches on every hole. The grass does not look as healthy as other area courses. The greens are not in good shape, with weedy patches all over making for poor consistency.
Pace of play was slow, with no rangers about to ensure all golfers are maintaining pace. It looked like tee times were really close together, we waited on every hole.
There are only 3 tee boxes, and women may not like the fact that the front tee boxes play a full 5600 yards.
This course would be a great value if the conditions were better. As one guy i played with said, "it looks like the grounds crew didn't show up for a couple of weeks, it wasn't watered the whole time.
There is a lot of noise from an adjoining go cart race track, constant buzzing.

Customer Service

Polite friendly staff. If they can solve the maintenance issues this course will be a steal at the current price.

Similar Products Used:

Most in the valley. Dove Valley at around the same price is in far better condition.