Golf Course Review: Beaver Creek Golf Course

This golf course review was a long time overdue. Beaver Creek Golf Course is one of my favorite layouts in all of Louisiana. Especially holes 13 - 17. The course is usually always in great condition, and I don't get to play here as much as I'd like.

It had been almost a year since the last time I played Beaver Creek, so I called up Preston, he was available, and we played last Thursday, Jan 8th. The weather was near perfect, and we were able to wear short sleeves most of the day. Something that is nice to do in January. The only challenge was the wind blowing around 15-20 mph with gusts up to 25-30 mph.

Beaver Creek Golf Course is part of BREC (Baton Rouge Recreation) which also operates Santa Maria, Webb Memorial, and City Park Baton Rouge. Beaver Creek is the best overall course out of all of them, even though Santa Maria is their pride and most popular.

The only thing lacking at Beaver Creek is their clubhouse. It is adequate and has the essentials for golf, however it is not much of a place to hang out after a round. There is a larger sitting room with a TV but out of the last 4 times I have been there the grill was closed all but one time. I'm sure there is a reason and maybe it's only open Fri to Sun, but there wasn't many option for drinks in the golf shop.

Now, Beaver Creek has one of the best practice facilities int the state. A full range, large practice putting Green and a short game area with a bunker. A place you could spend all day working on your game.

The course itself is a really good layout. There is a good mix of holes where you have to think your way around the course instead of hitting driver off every hole. Some of the shorter holes have narrow fairways, while the longer holes have wider fairways. Even the par 3 holes are a good mix of yardages, where every par 3 plays differently. Too many golf courses, you end up hitting the same club on every par 3.

The biggest issue of the day was the number of footprints in the bunkers. I show this in the video, but that is only a fraction of the number of footprints we saw. The saddest part is there was a minimum of two rakes around every bunker. I have seen this trending recently at many other golf courses, but the amount of footprints visible at Beaver Creek was more than those other courses combined.

As for the conditions. I was already expecting Beaver Creek to be good, but I was surprised at how good the course was during winter conditions. More green than I expected and more grass on the greens than I was expecting. Only a few fairways looked bare, but overall the entire golf course looked healthy.

Overall: 3.5 out of 5

Tee Boxes: 3.5 out of 5

The teeing areas are level, and they had a good amount of healthy grass on them. I guess at the time the temperatures hadn't been low enough, long enough, to make the grass try and go dormant. The grass was cut to the same height as the fairways, and there were not a lot of divots not he par 3 tee areas.

Fairways: 2.5 out of 5

The fairways were actually better than I am rating them, but there were 3 holes that looked really bad. They were playable with grass but the grass looked diseased and discolored. Those areas were large and covered the majority of those fairways. Even though there was grass in those areas, it looked more dormant, like what you'd expect this time of year, compared to the rest of the fairways that were healthy, fuller and greener.

Greens: 4 out of 5

The greens were really great. They were not as good as they are during the summer when they play firmer and faster, but for January, they were excellent. They were smooth with a good speed, slightly on the faster side. Some of the slopes would make some putts fast, but not where it gets away from you or rolls off the green. They were also consistent from hole to hole with the look, feel, and speed. Only two holes were slightly different. One was softer and kind of damp, where the ball mark was deeper. This, however, did not affect the speed on that green. Another looked like the grass was a little thinner, almost as if winter got to this green earlier than all the rest. Again, it rolled just like all the other.

The bunkers, with the exception of all the footprints, were pretty good. All the fairways Bunker were consistent with the same semi-firm sand. The green side bunkers were all a good soft sand, with the exception of two that we noticed. One, where in the video Preston's golf ball gets stuck under the lip of the bunker, was more like the fairways bunkers with a more gritty type sand and hard compacted sand around the edges. The other one I played out of in the video was very compacted with an almost concrete-like feel around the edges. Both were playable, just not consistent with the rest of the green side bunkers on the golf course.

I look forward to getting back to Beaver Creek again this spring and getting another video to see how the course transitions out of the winter conditions.