(11-26-2023, 10:21 AM)homebiscuit Wrote: My sons and I, along with one of their friends, played a round at Hyde Park golf course yesterday. What a sad disappointment it was. Being the Saturday after Thanksgiving with beautiful weather, the place was packed like any other golf course. New owners bought the place a few years ago and had previously been putting work into improving the course. It was obvious yesterday that apparently the money, or the willingness to continue improving the course, have diminished. Some of the greens are in dismal condition. But what made yesterday so bad is they stacked the players up and had not one single ranger on the course to keep play moving along. Slow play created a five-and-a-half-hour round for us. Added to this frustration was even though the course was full of young, drinking aged players, they had no cart girl on the course. A glorious opportunity to make money and draw in new customers and keep returning customers happy (notwithstanding course conditions) was sadly squandered. 

I still like to play there because it's an Old Florida course with challenging greens and approach shots. Unfortunately, it looks to be on the downslide again and may not recover. An interview I read with the new owners, who are a retired couple, say the only bids they've received to buy the course from them have no intention of keeping it as a golf course. It's going to be a sad day for local golf when it gets plowed over to build a subdivision. Sadly, it appears that time is getting closer.

I grew up playing that course, and it's a great layout, but it has suffered from neglect recently, and I've avoided it.  

On the other hand, I played Bent Creek several times lately, and that course is in great shape, especially for that price.   You might try that one instead.  The other day, I paid [I forget how much, somewhere around $400] at BC for unlimited range balls and $13 greens fees "after twilight," which is (I think) 12:00 noon right now.

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