Poppy Ridge Golf Course — Attraction in Livermore

The old Poppy Ridge was challenging for the wrong reasons - narrow fairways, that mostly routed back and forth, often into the wind or a crosswind, which wreaked havoc on your game. There were steep slopes on the sides of fairways that shot your ball off into the weeded netherlands, often never to be seen again. And oh how that contributed to slow play! Not knowing there was a different way, we all accepted the course as we found it, and played through. Not anymore.

The new Poppy Ridge is fair, playable, walkable, more manageable in the wind, and just a more fun golf course to play now. Don't let the wide fairways, fewer bunkers and less elevation changes fool you. This course is as challenging as the old one, but now it is challenging for the right reasons.

The new course offers golfers of any ability to now have greater control over his/her game. Gone are the days when the wind, narrow fairways, steep slopes, and numerous sand bunkers (in very poor condition, usually) would punish even the best golfers. The new course has wide, generous fairways that allow you to play into, with or in a sideways wind, and still find the fairway to give you an opportunity to play the hole in front of you. And yes, the fairways are wide, but now it is up to you to execute your next shot, instead of playing a blind recovery shot from an adjacent fairway. See the difference? You will when you play the course.

Another change that I like is the rough has been eliminated from around the greens, so you can now use any club in the bag to hit onto the green. I used my putter from well over 20 feet from the green several times. This will make it easier for the average golfer, but harder for the good players as they will have to determine which kind of shot to play - use a putter, wedge, hybrid?

Several holes now have blind tee shots, and you cannot see the green from the tee. It provides a nice visual from the tee box, and adds to the mystery of the best strategy to play the hole. There are also several "risk/reward" dilemmas on the course - #16 is a great example - do you drive directly at the green and leave yourself a short, lofted shot to an elevated green? Or, do you put your drive out to the right where there is a longer approach shot to a level green. I can tell you that I took the latter approach, and fared much better than my playing partners, who all took the direct approach and could not keep their balls on the green.

The course is definitely more walkable, with much shorter green to tee connections. The old course was estimated to be over 10,000 yards to walk, with 1,700 feet of cumulative elevation changes. The new course is now 8,150 yards, with 1,250 feet of elevation changes. For comparison, Poppy Hills is 9,120 yards to walk, and 900 feet of elevation changes. In my opinion, it is more walkable, but I'm not sure it is an easy walk, just more "walkable."

The most important takeaway for me is that your outcome on the new course is now more on you, and not the elements or poor course design. The old narrow fairways, poor routing, the wind controlling strategy instead of vice versa, excessive sand bunkers, sloping hillsides...you know them all. A day on the old Poppy Ridge was a frustrating day of golf. The new course has its own set of challenges that take into account the natural landscape and wind directions, and then places the burden on you to execute good shots from tee to green. The course is difficult, but not harsh. Rewarding, not frustrating. In all, this is a successful transformation.

And what did I shoot? My 92 was about what I would have scored on the old course. But there was one thing that was completely different - I felt completely satisfied that I gave the course my best shot, and nothing external to my game took anything away from me. Not the wind or the poorly laid out golf course. It was all within my control, and that made for a great day on the course.

I hope you'll get a chance to play it soon. I think you'll enjoy it as...

Updated August 11, 2025: Played the new 18 hole course at Poppy Ridge on Saturday August 9. We didn't find out until we were on the 1st Hole that all of the fairways were recently sanded, with tons of sand. It is fair to say that many fairways were shots were more like shots from a sand trap than a grass fairway. So disappointing that we were not told about this and even more disappointing that our green fees were not discounted appropriately for the extremely poor conditions. Starting to feel that Poppy Ridge only cares about money and not the enjoyment of the players on the course. Disgraceful!! #NCGA

Update October 3, 2023: Played golf at Poppy Ridge yesterday. The course is in rough shape - the sand traps are like concrete, almost unplayable, the fairways are covered with patches with little to no grass, and the rough is a mess. I talked to an employee after the round and was told that Poppy Ridge has a big development starting in January and doesn't want to put any money into the current course. What a shame. I will wait until after the development to play here again

Original Post 4 Stars 4 years ago: A beautiful golf course with 27 holes. Beautiful and well maintained. A fun and fair...

So - first the good. The people were very friendly - from the pro shop to the restaurant. And the food was pretty good. Nice views from the clubhouse balcony.

The golf? It was not great. I play courses all over Northern California from private country clubs to municipal-style courses - and play at least once a week. I’ve played Poppy Hills quite a bit and expected similar quality golf at Poppy Ridge.

So - for the bad. Tee boxes were generally in poor condition. Some bad spots in the fairways (and it’s only late-May). Greens were the slowest I’ve ever played - period. I really couldn’t believe they were this slow. Last - the pace of play was really slow. We had a group in front of us who spent the day collecting golf balls on almost every hole - and we didn’t see a single marshal on the course to move play along. There’s also quite a bit of cross-fairway play that happens - so listen for people yea by “fore!”.

This course is probably a bargain for folks in the east Bay Area who want decent golf at a good (NCGA) price - but, in my opinion, it’s not worth the drive to play if you’re more than...