Rancho San Marcos Golf Course

Santa Barbara, CA

Reviewed by: kviser, Saugus, CA

Good times today with Ron, Jerry, and the rest of the group. Big thanks to JohnnyGK and RSM for this GK Guru round. The course is currently in great condition overall.

The practice facilities are great here. There is a big putting green and a pitching green with a bunker as well as an all grass driving range.

Greens were putting medium fast. Not many ball marks; maybe a couple that were poorly repaired and a couple small ones that were missed. The greens did hold any well struck shot and it was no problem getting running pitches to stop consistently.

Fairways were nice to look at with the single mow stripe down the middle. Good hitting surfaces overall with only a couple of firm areas.

Rough, well, it’s good to stay out of the rough. It was a mix of deep, thick grass to thin lies. If you go outside that, it’s as good as lost in some knee-high foxtails.

Bunkers seemed mostly consistent. Good white, sparkly sand but a little on the thin side with only about an inch and a half over hard pan in many bunkers. Not terribly shabby and fairly easy to hit from.

Tees were lush but a couple had a lot of divot damage (par threes, so that was predictable) and a few were not too level at the tee markers. It was not bad by any means, though.

POP was about 4 hours with a little waiting on the groups ahead of us. Unfortunately, for the group behind us, the snack shop stopped food service at 2:30 on a Sunday. I was able to get some tri tip and it was good. Maybe not $13 good, but I needed it and it was tasty.