Arrowhead & Tidewater 4-20-22

We were originally booked for 18 holes, & agreed 9 hole replay, subject to availability. After getting rained out Mon at Tidewater,  the booked for 2 pm Wednesday instead. 

Arrowhead......tee off temp48* and sunny, but 10+mph winds, temps never got much above 60. As always, conditions overall were excellent. The greens may have been just a shade slower than usual, but that's more of an observation than a complaint. Pop was a bit longer than we like, took about 4:25. Saw rangers a few times.

Staff treats you like old friends at every encounter. 

So nothing unusual this morning, other than a beautiful morning on a great course with the crew. The only negative was trying to pull the trigger on your backswing when your teeth were chattering.

PM....Tidewater 2:00 pm. 

Arrived 1:30 & checked in & grabbed a sandwich. Bag drop, pro shop & snack bar. Always been treated well here & today was no exception. 

I've always had mixed emotions about TW, good solid course, but didn't seem worth the $$$'s to me. But when the "dynamic pricing" virus hit, for whatever reason, when I booked, TW it was relatively cheap, so gave it another try.Very busy again, but baggers & starters handled the crowd well. 

New lithium battery carts, with great gps, were a bonus. 

The Course....I do like the routing & design here & it's on a great property. Can't go wrong here. 

Conditions weren't "bad" by any means, but, of all the greens we played this week, these were the bottom of the list. They were slick, but kind of bumped & bobbled a little on the way to the hole. Looked with the Bermuda was in transition.

Fairway had a decent overseed on them, but they were FAST! Lots of runout on every drive. Roughs and all green surrounds were dormant brown Bermuda, leaving NO grass under the ball for chipping, whenever possible, I used a 4 hybrid to hit bump & run chips around the greens.

Pace of play.....

Utter failure. A little over 5 hours to play 18. Talked to one of the bag drop guys about it whole unloading. Well, we been really busy lately, he said. I pointed out that so was Meadowlands yesterday but we played 2 rounds right around 4hrs even. What we saw at Meadowlands but not a TW was rangers. Saw none at Tidewater. The other disturbing thing about pop, as we unloaded, after more than 5 hours to play, the gps on the cart was informing me I was 3 minutes behind pace. I pointed that out to them. I told them that sends the message that Management thinks 5 hrs is OK? He said I really should go inside ^ talk to them about it, as they encourage feedback. We were beat & ready to head home, so I told him, just pass it along for me. I wasn't looking to score a free hat or anything...they strike me as the types that would like to know what customers thoughts were. 

I've rambled enough here, & I'm not knocking TW's conditions, but judged against all our other couses this week, these were on the bottom.

Ps..a note of interest.....our 4th player this year is one of the Larrys little brother, who has been to Hilton head several times, but never to the beach.

Interesting to hear a newcomers opinion of the courses we all know like back of hands, but he is playing  for the first time.