I played Southern Dunes for the first time yesterday and offer the following observations:
The course is well done. I like the routing, which is generally counterclockwise/clockwise. The course is very walkable and flows well and it was very playable despite a lack of overseeding on the fairways and a ton or recent rain.
There is some sameness to the look and play of a number of holes. For example, 9 and 18 seem almost the same except 18 has water grenside right. The par 5s had a lot of similarity too, and they were almost all the same distance (545 from the tees we played). A lot of it has to do with the fairway bunkering as there are routinely bunkers on the inside of the doglegs. Also this course, which purports to be a “Fred Couples” design (with Schmidt/Curley), is very much a Jack Nicklaus clone that favors a high fade on nearly every approach shot.
I liked the greens, which have some excellent contouring. The bunkering, though a bit overdone at times, seems to fit well with the “dunes” concept.
In addition to the first, which is a solid opener, the holes I liked best lacked the sameness I mention above: the short par 4 2d, with a small perched green that is nicely contoured, the long par 3 6th, the par 4 10th with a fun tee shot over water to a diagonal fairway, and the short par 4 14th, which has more sand than grass and presents a host of options.
As was mentioned above, it’s unfortunate that the areas immediately adjacent to the mowed areas often have impenetrable, ball eating fescue type grass or other similar overgrowth that equates to unplayable lies or lost balls. Yes one shouldn’t be there since there’s plenty of width but the wilder shot is rewarded with a play from desert dirt. At least they might mow some of that stuff down, but I understand the budgetary issues.
All in all a very pleasant course for a round. Not sure I’d rank it higher than Talking Stick North or the We Ko Pa courses but it was worth playing.