Best Club Practice Facility?

[Paul Payne]

Tiger,

I was waiting for someone to call me out on that one. Sand Hills is my lame attempt at humor when it comes to this category.

What it boils down to is they have a cow pasture on a slope.

[Tiger_Bernhardt]

Paul, I should have seen that. lol You have to take a bit of a ride to get to the pasture too. However, once over the top to the course is as pure as it gets.

[Tim Bert]

To be fair, I don't think Sand Hills has any expectation of having people practice on their range.

I thought of it more as a warm-up facility than a practice facility.  I liked the idea of a brief pit stop at a ragged range with a small bag of balls to get loose.

[John Kirk]

Tiger,

Kinloch's facility offers shorter walking distances between areas, and you don't have to practice in a heavy wind.  You do have to practice in high humidity, however.

[Mike Benham]

The Plantation Club in Indio was solid but MPCC is outstanding ...

[Jim Franklin]

As previously mentioned, Kinloch's short game area has a variety of slopes to practice from that would improve anyone's game (if used enough). I have not seen another short game area that comes close. I have seen Caves Valley's plenty and it is nice, but Kinloch's goes to another level.

My tee time at Bandon was so early, I couldn't see the practice area so I don't know how good it is.

But the king of all practice facilities is the PGA Village in Port St Lucie. That place was amazing. Different grasses, different sands, side hill lies, up and down hill lies, great stuff.

[Tom Huckaby]

Mr. Benham beat me to it.

Sand Hills is perfect for the need - beat a few balls to warmup in full unprentious majesty smacking balls into a cow pasture.  Then drive further along and try your and at one of the coolest putting greens you'll ever see.  It's all perfect for the place.   It's just not, of course, any sort of practice area.

Bandon Dunes is pretty great - huge and has all you could want.

BUT... I'd say MPCC's is superior.  Perfect grass range with not only target greens, but bunkers shaped to flank on the sides of a fairway... One enormous manicured green geared for short-game practice, with potential for shots up to 100 yards... Then enother enormous perfect green for putting, sloped and contoured to bejesus...

Hell, these two are on a par.  Perhaps the presence of the par three course tips the scales for Bandon... but normal folks aren't allowed to use that, correct?

TH

[tlavin]

Sand Hills is just hysterical.  You fly into North Platte, drive fifty miles, your golf juices spilling all over the rental car, get to the pro shop, slip into a golf cart and drive almost a mile and you get a true cow pasture for a range.  It is oddly perfect for the otherworldly feeling of the entire experience.

Back on subject, here in Chicago, Conway Farms, a relatively new course (10 years or so) has a terrific practice facility as does Harborside, a rustbelt site with 36 holes.  I was blown away by two clubs in the Hilton Head area, Belfair and Berkeley Hall, which both have spectacular practice/teaching facilities.  The golf wasn't nearly as good as Long Cove, but the practice areas were terrific.

[Steve Lapper]

Sand Hills is just hysterical.  You fly into North Platte, drive fifty miles, your golf juices spilling all over the rental car, get to the pro shop, slip into a golf cart and drive almost a mile and you get a true cow pasture for a range.  It is oddly perfect for the otherworldly feeling of the entire experience.

Yet, is there a better (or more fun) practice putting green than Sand Hills?

[Tom Huckaby]

Concur with Terry re Sand Hills - but the key is it does remain PERFECT for the place.  And Steve, see my post above... that is one of the damn coolest practice putting greens I've seen.  It's #1 in the "small" category without a doubt.

TH

[HamiltonBHearst]

Fisher's Island-Perfect for the place.

[Tiger_Bernhardt]

I forgot how much improved MPCC is getting. They also have the shag range for you to hit your own balls.

[Darren_Kilfara]

Anyone care to nominate a contender in the "Great Britain & Ireland" category? (Seriously...)

[rjsimper]

My only knock on the Bandon practice area is that there are no holes in the putting greens.  I hate putting to those little pegs and I find they don't much help me with anything other than long putts.  Maybe it was just an off-season thing and someone can surely tell me if they still putt to pegs in July.

[Jim Sweeney]

Lloyd Cole:

Sorry for the late reply. THe purpose of the hazard is the same as hitting ptches from behind bunkers- to get over the fear of doing it.

[Peter_Collins]

The practice facility at Flint Hills National is quite nice.  The club's web site says the practice facility is 31 acres and the largest in the US.  It is very similar to the practice facility at World Woods but has a greater number of target greens and practice bunkers.  It also has a full length practice fairway.

[Jim Franklin]

I think the Friars Head putting green is more fun than the Sand Hills green. Sand Hills' is great, but you gotta go with FH as the better green.

[Sean Leary]

Bandon's and Pine Valley were two of my favorites, but are far away from the clubhouse and first tee. I like when the practice area is close, particularly for post round use.

[Nick Church]

So I started to create my "two cents" addition to this discussion.  I soon realized that this post might qualify as "this post is useless without pictures".  So, I quickly went to Google Maps.  I then spent the next 10 minutes cussing my 'puter and Google.  "How in the heck can Google's map service be down?!?!?" I screamed.  The image is horrible, a reverse negative if I ever saw one.

Upon further inspection, I realized why it is that I graduated from Western Kentucky University instead of the Ivy League.  




The imagery is not black & white --- it's SNOW!

I can't help but wonder why Google chose to use a satellite image after a snow storm.  

***Note: I tried to attach the image, but I couldn't figure it out.  Maybe it's my newbie status.  Sorry guys.

All that said...

I am biased, but the practice facility at The Bridgewater Club (Indiana) is very nice.  I miss it as much as anything else about living on Indy's northside.

[Kevin_Reilly]

So I started to create my "two cents" addition to this discussion.  I soon realized that this post might qualify as "this post is useless without pictures".  

[Nick Church]

Kevin -- yeah, I know.  I am more than willing to post the JPG, but how to here?

Any help?  Anyone?

Nick

[rjsimper]

Kevin -- yeah, I know.  I am more than willing to post the JPG, but how to here?

Any help?  Anyone?

Nick

Upload it to a host like www.photobucket.com or your own domain.

Then take the URL for the image and include it in your post like this

{img}http://whateveryourfullURLis.jpg{/img}

But, substitute the {s with [s

Make sense?

[Nick Church]

Ok, used PhotoBucket.com, here is the link:

http://i93.photobucket.com/albums/l77/nickc445/BridgewaterMapSnow2.jpg

[Kevin_Reilly]

Ok, used PhotoBucket.com, here is the link:

http://i93.photobucket.com/albums/l77/nickc445/BridgewaterMapSnow2.jpg

Use {img} and {/img} (substituting "[" for "{" where you see it) before and after the url.

[Nick Church]

Alright, Google Maps updated to show the practice facility and adjacent 9-hole short course in "greener" conditions.

I still miss this practice facility tremendously.  

The short course is the left of the range.  

The big course is to the right & lower right
Top Right is the first hole, driveable 320 yards with best conditions (tail wind).
Below that is the nineth hole (dogleg left, tough drive).  Picture doesn't show it, but a huge pond now hugs the left side from 100 yards in (in the picture, it's just below the skinny bunker in the open field area).
The 18th green is sandwiched between 9-green and the range (with the pond to the right of 18-green).  Very tough second shot with a match is tight.

Anyway, the practice facilty, especially the short game area is fantastic!