In early May my wife and I traveled to California and had the pleasure of golfing at Pacific Grove, Pasatiempo, San Juan Oaks, Monarch Dunes, Sandpiper, Oak Quarry, Desert Willow-Firecliff, and LaQuinta Mountain.
Monarch Dunes was our 4th stop on our trip. The course is part of a residential community and was designed by Damian Pascuzzo and PGA golfer Steve Pate. Even though the course is part of a residential community, and houses appear quite often in the photos, we never felt that the houses actually intruded on our experience; we felt that the course was laid out in such a way that it helped produce an enjoyable round of golf.
Yardages are 4,770/5,785/6,342/6,712/7,133. All yardages listed here are from the 7,133 yard tees.
We teed up at about 3:00 so unfortunately several photos are shot into the low sun on various holes.
Onto the course...
Opening tee shot, a dogleg left par-4 of 437 yards
Slightly uphill approach at #1
No pics of #2 (a downhill par 3 of 200 yards).
#3 fairway, 567 yard par-5
Brenda's approach at #3
Looking back at #3
#4 fairway, 423 yards
Tee shot on #5, 400 yards ... long and left was best here
Par-3 6th hole, 255 yards
Tee shot on 7, 440 yards dogleg right
Fairway on 7th hole
Looking back on the 7th hole
Uphill 8th, 490 yard par-5
8th fairway
Rules officials
Looking back down #8
Mundane (boring) looking teeshot on #9, par-4 397 yards
Approach at #9. My ball (in front of flag) landed short and right and rolled close. Fun shot.
Of the 8 courses on the trip, Monarch Dunes fit somewhere in the middle of them. The real estate certainly didn't add to the experience, but it really didn't detract much either. The price was right, and the course was relatively quiet on the weekday afternoon when we were there. One reason I wanted to stop along the way and golf there was to see what their velvet bentgrass greens were like. They are having a battle with them; the practice green probably presenting the best example, with poa spotting all over the green. The 18 greens on the course didn't seem as bad, and where it still looked like pure stands of the stuff, that velvet was oh so smooth and felt awfully nice underfoot. In the photo below, you can note the spots of poa in the velvet. Hopefully they can get it under control in the future.
Back 9 to follow.
Cheers,
Jim