I visited Woodhall Spa with some golfing friends a couple of months ago. The scenery is great and it's a very challenging course kept in good condition.

However, when we were in the pro shop before the round, it wasn't properly explained to us that we need to use mats off the fairway. 4 or 5 holes in we had the same pro (Nikita I believe) who served us in the shop drive up to us to have a moan about the fact we weren't using mats. He told us that he had had 4 or 5 calls from the group behind us reporting it. We said that no one had explained this to us, and he told us that we would have been told in the pro shop. However he was the same person who served us and he didn't say anything. He didn't accept accountability and gave us some mats and told us there's a pro behind us who will be keeping a close eye. The group behind us caught up a couple of holes later and told us they didn't snitch. The Lady pro in the group was very kind and encouraged us to just enjoy the course and assured us that no one in her group snitched. So we let them play through and we continued.

For a few holes after we had different person (green keeper perhaps) follow us around the course in a golf cart and hiding between the trees. One player in our group played a bunker shot and the guy in the cart hurried up to him, grabbed the rake and said that there has been multiple complaints that we are not raking the bunkers. This was nonsense, we make a point of leaving the bunkers better than we found them. Day ruined.

We have played quite a few nicer golf courses around the country, and this was the first proper negative experience we have encountered. I hope it was a one off as I'd like to visit the course again.