Living in Ruislip

[dejf]

Great, will look forward to hearing what you think of it. Have not been there in years.

So, here is my report

As a local resident, I have paid 14 GBP for 18 holes. For that money, I have received maybe little more than I would expected in terms of quality of the course. Note that this is my subjective feeling that I can only compare with what I used to pay for golf in CR as I do not have enough UK golfing experience. So it might be the case that for the same money in UK you normally get far more or far less. I do not know, but my overall feeling is that I received good value for the money.

What I was not really happy about was the inability to play 20-30 balls on driving before the game. I would be happy to pay up to 2 GBP for that, but there is no option to do so. The minimal amount of balls you can buy is 50 for 3 GBP. And I do have 100 balls there for 3.50 GBP. It makes no sense for me to buy 50 balls for 3 GBP and use 20 of them for warm up. What you can do is to warm up in the cage with your own balls, but the cages are not in a good condition, but OK, can be used.


I was happy to see on the first hole that there was a detailed map of the 1st hole. Sadly, this map is present on only about 5-6 holes on the course. This means that playing the course for the first time, I was unsure what to expect when teeing off no most of the holes on the course. I also missed some navigation. Yes, on the most complicated situations between the holes, there is a navigation sign, but in many other cases I just had to go with trial/error approach to find where to play next. The very small paper with course map was indeed helpful with this, but I would definitely welcome a better information on the course.

I was also really confused on holes 5 and 6, which are really unusually designed with tees being close to each other, so you play hole 5 par 3 and then you go back to where you played from and play hole 6. Looked odd to me, but the local guys playing after me knew what to do. They simply played their shots from both tees and then went to finish hole 5 and then continued to hole 6. They really could save some good time there, but I did not like it.



As for the current quality of playing areas.
Greens - really good for the money. Would definitely not expect anything better than that. Quite fast and mostly looked very well. Only couple of greens had some problems here and there, some brown spots or alike. I did not even see many ball marks.

Fairways - just OK, providing a good advantage being on fairway. Not the top quality, but very OK.

Roughs - no problem there.

Bunkers - the most problematic areas I have seen today. Some of them flooded, some of them just dried out, so very hard on the ground and hard to play - you do not really know what your club will do after the contact. So this was the greatest problem in terms of quality. But hey, you should not play there in the first place, right ? And also, I have sometimes missed the rakes. So I made some marks in the bunker and had no rakes to fix it. This should not happen in my opinion.

Course Design - well, it is a short course with very limited space. No problem for the money, but would not buy membership there. However, lots of trees and ditches makes the course not easy to win against. Definitely not on your first game on the course


Will play again for sure.

 

[dejf]

pm me and you can play as my guest. If you are interested in joining they will probably let you play one round at guest rates, refundable if you join, anyway. At least they did for me.

Thanks! I received an offer to play 9 holes to try the course myself, so I am going for it.
Currently, the member offer I received is very good and I am very happy about it except for one major problem I have with it.

The problem is that only 5day membership is within my (somehow extended) budget there, but definitely not 7day membership. And from all the information I have received from Oliver, there are almost no official (i.e. counts towards the handicap) competitions played Mon-Fri. Everything is done on weekends. And I am quite sure I want to play official competitions quite often (at least 2x per mo.).

So I really do not know what to do here. I will check with Pinner Hill. If there are also no competitions during weekdays, the option would be to take their 7day membership, which is quite expensive for me, but not completely unreal, unlike BP.

A though decision to make
Really want those competitions ...

 

[Foxholer]

So, here is my report

As a local resident, I have paid 14 GBP for 18 holes. For that money, I have received maybe little more than I would expected in terms of quality of the course. Note that this is my subjective feeling that I can only compare with what I used to pay for golf in CR as I do not have enough UK golfing experience. So it might be the case that for the same money in UK you normally get far more or far less. I do not know, but my overall feeling is that I received good value for the money.

What I was not really happy about was the inability to play 20-30 balls on driving before the game. I would be happy to pay up to 2 GBP for that, but there is no option to do so. The minimal amount of balls you can buy is 50 for 3 GBP. And I do have 100 balls there for 3.50 GBP. It makes no sense for me to buy 50 balls for 3 GBP and use 20 of them for warm up. What you can do is to warm up in the cage with your own balls, but the cages are not in a good condition, but OK, can be used.


I was happy to see on the first hole that there was a detailed map of the 1st hole. Sadly, this map is present on only about 5-6 holes on the course. This means that playing the course for the first time, I was unsure what to expect when teeing off no most of the holes on the course. I also missed some navigation. Yes, on the most complicated situations between the holes, there is a navigation sign, but in many other cases I just had to go with trial/error approach to find where to play next. The very small paper with course map was indeed helpful with this, but I would definitely welcome a better information on the course.

I was also really confused on holes 5 and 6, which are really unusually designed with tees being close to each other, so you play hole 5 par 3 and then you go back to where you played from and play hole 6. Looked odd to me, but the local guys playing after me knew what to do. They simply played their shots from both tees and then went to finish hole 5 and then continued to hole 6. They really could save some good time there, but I did not like it.



As for the current quality of playing areas.
Greens - really good for the money. Would definitely not expect anything better than that. Quite fast and mostly looked very well. Only couple of greens had some problems here and there, some brown spots or alike. I did not even see many ball marks.

Fairways - just OK, providing a good advantage being on fairway. Not the top quality, but very OK.

Roughs - no problem there.

Bunkers - the most problematic areas I have seen today. Some of them flooded, some of them just dried out, so very hard on the ground and hard to play - you do not really know what your club will do after the contact. So this was the greatest problem in terms of quality. But hey, you should not play there in the first place, right ? And also, I have sometimes missed the rakes. So I made some marks in the bunker and had no rakes to fix it. This should not happen in my opinion.

Course Design - well, it is a short course with very limited space. No problem for the money, but would not buy membership there. However, lots of trees and ditches makes the course not easy to win against. Definitely not on your first game on the course


Will play again for sure.

Seems a pretty typical Muni/Public style! Proper 'Member' courses will, or at least should, be a significant step up in quality (and cost!).

The cost of balls is actually pretty low. I'd suggest you simply add £1 to the 'cost' of the round and donate the 30 balls you don't use for warm-up to another user - kids? I'd simply use the nets myself, as I do at another Muni we occasionally go to elsewhere (Panshanger).

 

[delc]

Thanks! I received an offer to play 9 holes to try the course myself, so I am going for it.
Currently, the member offer I received is very good and I am very happy about it except for one major problem I have with it.

The problem is that only 5day membership is within my (somehow extended) budget there, but definitely not 7day membership. And from all the information I have received from Oliver, there are almost no official (i.e. counts towards the handicap) competitions played Mon-Fri. Everything is done on weekends. And I am quite sure I want to play official competitions quite often (at least 2x per mo.).

So I really do not know what to do here. I will check with Pinner Hill. If there are also no competitions during weekdays, the option would be to take their 7day membership, which is quite expensive for me, but not completely unreal, unlike BP.

A though decision to make
Really want those competitions ...

There is at least one weekday medal per month (usually played on a Friday), and you can play in certain of the weekend comps as a 5 day member at Batchworth Park. If you are a senior, there are also at least two weekday qualifiers per month.

 

[dejf]

Seems a pretty typical Muni/Public style! Proper 'Member' courses will, or at least should, be a significant step up in quality (and cost!).

The cost of balls is actually pretty low. I'd suggest you simply add £1 to the 'cost' of the round and donate the 30 balls you don't use for warm-up to another user - kids? I'd simply use the nets myself, as I do at another Muni we occasionally go to elsewhere (Panshanger).

Yeah, next time I will use the nets. This time I have just discovered there are nets like 5 minutes before teeing off after my warmup was finished
It seems that at least in Ruislip, people start coming to the range at about 10am, there was nobody there before 0930. I was there on Monday and Wednesday too and it was the same - no people before 10am, but quite a few between 10 and 12.

 

[dejf]

There is at least one weekday medal per month (usually played on a Friday), and you can play in certain of the weekend comps as a 5 day member at Batchworth Park. If you are a senior, there are also at least two weekday qualifiers per month.

I guess that playing in weekend comps would cost me hard. Doing that say 20 times per year, my overall cost would raise by 400, if that comp round was only for 20, which I think it would be higher. Or not?


I am not going to be a senior for a couple of decades, so no chance there

Strange that Oliver did not mention Friday medals ... I can remember he mentioned some "mixed" competitions on Fridays, in which "mixed" was about including lady on the team, which does not sound like a competition played towards ones handicap. So that is probably not the one you are talking about, right?

Is there any web page with these medals - to see the history of the comps, to be able to see how many of them were played?

 

[MegaSteve]

Slightly further afield take a look at Stanmore... Still have 'public' days with green fees at a 'reasonable' rate... Not sure if they still have 'public' days at Pinner... Certainly used to do so and were great value... West-Mid was another local 'private' club that had 'public' days that was worthy of a visit... For pay and play courses in the area Wexham probably has the best practice facilities... Can't think of anywhere in the area with a 300 yard+ driving range you seem to be seeking... Playing 'Tricky Ricky' is great for honing your iron play skills though can be slow going...

With the rain we've had this week no surprise some of the bunkers you encountered at Ruislip were flooded... Missing rakes I put down to the adjoining 'Con Club'... Bad lot get in there!

 

[dejf]

I have checked Denham and Buckinghamshire, they are both close, but unfortunately, they are unreal.

Stanmore / Wexham - too far for me.

So I will really go with Batchworth or Pinner. Will play both and then decide.

 

[delc]

I have checked Denham and Buckinghamshire, they are both close, but unfortunately, they are unreal.

Stanmore / Wexham - too far for me.

So I will really go with Batchworth or Pinner. Will play both and then decide.

Batchworth Park has the advantage that if you fancy a change, you can play at any other Crown Group course without any extra cost or green fee. You can also invite guests to any of them.

 

[sawtooth]

Hi Dejf good to hear that you have settled down not too far away.

Other courses you can try are below, all within 20 mins from you I would say.

http://www.thorneypark.com/
http://www.richingspark.co.uk/
http://www.stockleyparkgolf.co.uk

PM me when you fancy a game it would be good to catch up.

 

[dejf]

Batchworth Park has the advantage that if you fancy a change, you can play at any other Crown Group course without any extra cost or green fee. You can also invite guests to any of them.

I am well aware of this and Nine of Herts is a great bonus for me as this sounds like a super course for short game training.
As for the guests ... well I have to know someone before I can invite someone




sawtooth: heeey Yes, it is Ruislip, finally ... and I've got car I can drive!
These courses you write are little too far for me, I want something I can jump into in a couple of minutes.
I am especially afraid of traffic in the morning as I would like to make my training session early in the day and still have a whole day for work.
And with this UK traffic, what seems to be 20 minutes away, might be 30+ in fact at these rush hours. This is why I finally decide to drop Ealing of the list.