I recently started a new job and during my first week on the job I got word from a couple people that my new company had a large golf association available to employees and retirees. So guess what I did my first week of work? Yes, I joined the USAA Eagle Golf Club. It’s open to current employees and retirees, but you can also bring guests to play as well, which is a nice perk. They hold a golf tournament once a month with some special events mixed in throughout the year as well. All together, they will play 13 events in 2012.
On Saturday, the group played The Republic Golf Club. The Republic is a well known course in San Antonio owned by Foresight Golf. They also own The Bandit and Buckhorn locally and a total of nine courses across Texas. They used to own Pecan Valley, until they decided to close one of the most historic courses in San Antonio earlier this year, but that’s another story.
So back to the golf on Saturday. This was my first tournament playing with the tournament. I played with three other people from USAA and had a great time except for a couple issues with the golf course. The Republic was in great shape, the greens were fast but receptive and the fairways were pretty lush. I couldn’t be more impressed with the shape of the course. But there were a couple things that were unacceptable for a golf course of The Republic’s caliber and reputation.
First, after I arrived and checked in with my group, I went to warm up. Now I understand there were about 75 golfers about to go off and everyone wanted to warm up, but the golf course should have someone tending to the range at all times with that many people. Not one time in 30 minutes of being out there did I see someone come out and replenish the golf balls. People would stop hitting balls because there was none left. Some people didn’t even get to warm up because of it. I was only able to hit about seven golf balls which I had to walk out and get myself from in front of the tee line. It was horrible in my opinion to have that many golfers and not have someone out there replenishing the range balls.
The second thing that went bad was the pace of play. Again, we had 75 players that shotgunned off 1:15, which was actually suppose to be 1:00. I didn’t get done playing until 6:30. Yes, a 5 hour and 15 minute round. It was terrible slow. Not once did I see a course marshal come by and try to speed up play. We waited on just about every tee shot and green the entire day. While I understand some of the responsibility lies with the players, they still should have had someone out there pushing people along.
I hate to complain so much because I am looking forward to playing with my group of co-workers. But I just had to say these two things about The Republic, which I believe is all on them. Like I mentioned above, the course condition was superb, but these two things will make me think twice about going out to The Republic to play again.
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