I try and go out there several times a week, if not to play to use their practice facilities. This…read moreplace has everything you could ask for in a club:
1) Practice Facilities
2) Cheap membership fees
3) Cheap greens fees
4) Challenging courses
5) Open play
6) Friendly staff
7) Bar, food, social all excellent
First the Practice Facilities.
Mag Creek has a very large driving range with stocked balls. The range is closed Thursday mornings for maintenance and other things, but other than that its open from sun up to sun down. They have two putting and chipping areas that offers a pretty good simulation of what you'll see once you get on the course. Then an approach shot area where you can practice shots from about 70 yards in to a large green with three pin locations. All of these facilities are top notch. The driving range is large enough that you can hit from both sides. The range is sometimes hit or miss as far as turf condition. The guys there have quite a bit of real-estate to move the tee box and do this daily, but sometimes in the warmer months, things get a bit moonscapish, but its understandable.
When you sign up with Terry you can request the unlimited range option for $200. I think that has probably paid for itself 10-times in the 6-months I've been using it. They also have a game-improvement plan that I haven't looked into (but probably should based on recent scores trend).
Membership Fees:
From the website I think there are three levels of membership. We got the lowest level. I usually walk so i'm not worried about not having pay for a cart with the mid-level membership. But for us on the lowest level its $8 GREEN FEE WEEKDAY, $10 WEEKEND, then I htink cart is a flat $15 for both. This is for 18-holes. For 9-holes w cart they only charge $8 for cart, greens fees stay the same. Monthly dues are 155, 245, or 300/month. there was a joining fee that Terry Nelson waived for us.
The Courses:
Lets get to what everyone wants to know about...the courses. Mag features a links style set up. I had played at courses advertising theire 'links' style. From playing around here I always just thought that meant no trees, no water. O'contraire mon fraire. They took links style to a whole new level.
(((Scotland)))
The easiest of the courses is probably Scotland. Pretty straight forward course. Keep the ball on the green stuff and you'll be good. Requires a couple of big drives but not too bad. The thing with scotland is avoid the bunkers. They have some monsters. Most of them require stairs to get to the bottom off and you always manage to have tricky lies coming out of these.
(((England)))
The toss up for toughest of the last two probably goes to Ireland so I'll save that for last. That leaves England in Second place. When these guys move the tees all the way back, and put pins in back loaction the holes read something like
- #1, Par 4, 460
- #2, Par 4, 400
- #3, Par 4, 340 (uphill)
- #4, Par 5, 610
- #5, Par 4, 460
- #6, Par 3, 195
- #7, Par 4, 410
- #8, Par 3, 205
- #9, Par 5, 551
This ocurse gets long. Not a whole lot too it, some blind shots, but really this course is just a bear. Its huge. Greens are guarded by shallow bunkers, but until then its pretty wide open. Make sure you put a 2-iron or a hybrid in your bag if you're playing this course...unless you're first name is Tiger, Bubba, or Dustin.
(((Ireland)))
So the toughest in my opinion is Ireland. Not terribly long, but requires some shots to be made. You need to try and think you're way through this course. If you ytry and overpower it, it will just punch you right back harder. Water (really a creek...Magnolia Creek) comes into play here. There are a couple of risk, REWARD HOLES, but you will wish you took the safe play mostly. The whole course seems to slant towards the hazards as well. If you have a lateral hazard the course slants towards that, if you have something on your left or right, the whole fairway is graded towards that.
(((LAYOUT)))
The layout of this course magnifies the wind. It's wide open (remember no trees here). A little breeze at the house means a two-club wind at the course. The wind makes it all the more fun. You always seem to play the 600-yard par 5 on England into the wind. When you think the wind should be helping you, it dies....jerk. On truly windy days, might as well put the wedges away. The wind is a beast sent from above to slap your balls (sorry about that) right out of the sky.
(((STAFF, FOOD, BAR)))
The staff is excellent. From the guys in the pro-shop to the cart girls, to the bartenders...all great. The cooks are friendly and great at what they do. I haven't had a thing on the menu yet that I didn't like. I could go on, but I've now reached my limit on the review.
All-in-all, I highly recommend Magnolia Creek. If you get the chance to play, take it. If you get the chance to join...mention me.
