Stonetree Golf Course
Last week I played Stonetree with a few friends. One of my friend only golf’s about 4 times per year. His theory is that since he only plays a few times per year, he likes to go to top-of-the-line courses. He also likes to play course that are extremely hard. Let me be the first to say it’s a horrible idea when you’re a bad golfer. But Stonetree is certainly top-of-the-line and extremely hard so I went along with the plan.
Panoramic View from the 8th Tee
The good: Overall Stonetree is in excellent condition, has a beautiful club house and a great staff. It was built within the past 5 years and has nice greens. I like the bag drop area and the young people who handle your bags. It’s nice and makes me feel like I’m at a country club.
The bad: The first is the course layout. It’s essentially two different courses. Part of it is dead flat and the other part goes up some serious hills. They did do a nice job of inter-mixing the flat vs. hill holes so they are divided up between the nines. So the first 6 holes are flat, the next 3 are hills, then 3 flat, then the dreaded four (I’ll get back to these), and then the final 2 are flat again.
The entire course is links style and all about target golf. The flat holes have ungulated fairways so even if you are in the middle; you are most likely on a small mound. The holes in the hills are just plain difficult. And saying hills really doesn’t do them justice. These are serious hills, so steep that they won’t allow carts off the paths.
The dreaded four (13, 14, 15 and 16)
Check out the map of Stonetree Golf Course. Keep in mind that the satellite map doesn’t capture the elevation changes.
These holes are just plain wrong. 13 is straight up hill with OB on both sides and the green has three-tiers. 14 is like a giant V. You tee off on top of a hill, hit to the bottom and then go straight back up another hill. 15 is a long dogleg right with OB and oak trees all over it. And then there is 16… It’s the final par 5 on the course. It has the skinniest fairway of any golf hole I’ve ever played. The final 200 yards is about 20 yards wide and even if you hit it, it will roll left into the hazard. I hate this hole and it needs to be either widened or blown up with a bomb.
Green fees are steep at Stonetree as well. Probably over $100 prime weekend rate. And on GolfNow they always say the price includes a free bucket of range balls. BTW, they don’t have a range, it’s a net so why they keep saying free range ball seems ridiculous to me.
I only advise playing here if you are like my dumb ass buddy who likes to pay through the nose and get his ass handed to him on difficult courses. Stonetree is hard but I would say its architecture is a bit contrived, unfair and penalizes good shots.