Torrey Pines Golf Course — Attraction in San Diego

ATTENTION OUT OF STATE GOLFERS

If you’re looking for a special round or planning to make this a highlight of a golf trip and expecting a 5 star experience you will be disappointed. Torrey Pines is simply not worth the price of admission unless you’re local. Appears to me that Torrey Pines could use a punch in the wallet by way of out of state golfers taking their business elsewhere.

I wish I had read a review like this before booking. You may be a golf history person and so this will be a bucket list course regardless but the course on its own doesn’t measure up.

The Bad:

Staff is indifferent at best unless seeking a tip. Nothing bad to say about the people working there but if you just paid $450 to play on a weekend morning you’d think you wouldn’t have to go searching and asking around for a golf cart and load up your own bags. You might expect to have someone talk to you about info on the course, the history, or get any sort of attention from staff at all but that didn’t happen.

Weird and inconvenient pro shop set up, can’t pay for your round and the cart fee/range fee at the same place.

Breakfast burrito w partially cooked tortilla and a Gatorade $26. No ice chests on the carts, unsealed plastic bags of ice available to purchase. Where one would put that bag is a mystery.

You’d probably expect to be impressed by course conditions but you won’t be. Crab grass, dirt patches, average bunkers, and yellow grass. Every real course in California has greens this good, Shout out $40 Oceanside golf course.

Bathroom after 9th hole was disgusting.

The Ugly:

Price. $100 booking fee, it’s not a deposit that eventually is applied to your green fee. That’s the cost for the privilege of booking a tee time. $309 green fee, $45 cart fee, $8-$15 range ball fee. It’s insane.

Practice area is pathetic and you have to pay to use it. There was nothing left to do but laugh when I heard they were charging for range balls. Cheapest range balls possible, dispensed from a partially functioning golf ball vending machine. Not a grass range, cheap ripped hitting mats leave residue on your clubs. Crab grass consumed chipping area. Practice green doesn’t have cups punched, portable sticks. It all screamed budget course and I love a budget course but instead it was the most expensive round of my life. If you’re gonna charge those prices you need to be held to a much higher standard.

The message was loud and clear if you’re not local DON’T COME TO TORREY PINES. It started to feel scammy, name recognition and history gets them a full tee sheet but the course is not doing a single thing to deserve it. They know you won’t be back so they have to wring every last dollar from you while you’re there for the one and only time.

The Good:

Three free unmarked tees in the cart.

Most for the course is not beach front but Hole 3 on the south course is an epic view. Overall views are nice, I’d recommend stopping by and taking some pictures for free.

4.5 hour round was accurate to what the cart message said...

If you’re from out of state looking to check off some bucket list courses in Cali, leave this one at the bottom of your list. They make it very clear that they only want local golfers playing this course. I wish I saw a review like this before planning an entire golf trip around this “historic” course.

Tee times were $450 alone. Being the most expensive round of my life, I figured it would at least have some great practice areas, amenities, and some small complimentary mementos. Not even close.

When you get there, there’s no one there to direct you where to go. There no signs that point you in the right direction. You park and see a yellow, crab grass filled course that you’re praying isn’t the one you’re playing.

When you walk into the pro shop, they make it extremely difficult to even pay. You can’t pay for your tee times and over priced polos at the same counter. They make you go to separate cash registers for that. The $450 tee time doesn’t even come with the cart fee. No, you’re paying another $45 dollars to ride. Maybe it’ll at least come with some range balls, right? Wrong again. Another $15 for a bucket.

When you walk out of the club house, there’s no one who tells you where to grab a cart. Once you search on your own and find one, you get to a cheap cart with an unmarked pencil, unmarked tees and not even a complimentary water bottle. $450 and they can’t even provide water….

Once you load up, there’s a small shack that has some food and drinks available for purchase. A terrible breakfast burrito with over cooked chorizo and two waters was another $33 dollars. Don’t forget to tip the unfriendly staff though! You’d hope to put your waters or drinks in the cooler before heading to the range, but you’d be disappointed again. No coolers on the cart, but you can purchase an open bag of ice though!

Heading to the range, you’d be more impressed with your local municipal course. A ball dispenser that’s thirty years old will spit out the balls and you’ll head to the range with like 10 turf mats to hit off of. Most expensive course and you don’t even hit off of a grass range. Better get there a couple hours before your tee time because you’ll be waiting for a mat for a while.

Once you get to the first tee box, the views are great. The yellow grass and dry, dead, dirt spots are hard to overlook, but the ocean in the back ground does its best to pull you attention away. Don’t worry though, after the fourth hole you won’t have to worry about that and you can focus all your attention on the poorly managed course cause there’s no other views around.

All in all, there’s plenty of better places to play in the area and you’d be better off saving your money and playing 2-3 other times at far nicer courses. Thanks for the unforgettable memories...

This is such a beautiful venue! To many golfers, Torrey Pines GC is a sizable slice of heaven, in Torrey Pines, CA. It's also close to La Jolla Cove- another gorgeous point of interest, in San Diego County.

The fairways, as well as all putting surfaces, are so green, at Torrey Pines, plus they're pristine- lovingly manicured, by greenskeepers who care. I could tell this, from watching a recent PGA Tour event, hosted at Torrey Pines Municipal Golf Course, but also from my impressive vantage point, behind the course.

I witnessed one of the most beautiful sunsets, I've ever seen, peering over a chain-link fence & onto the natural green carpet of Torrey Pines. It was a multi-dimensional sunset, with shifting red, yellow, gold & purple colors. Some of these pictures, I got by zooming my camera lens through the Torrey Pines Municipal Golf Course chain link boundary fence.

Oh yeah...I almost forgot this tidbit. From time to time, your spirit will be lifted, (smirk, 😉) watching all the colorful paragliders, riding the wind currents, controlled by brave dangling humans. Silently, they whisk past a glowing sun, at the right time of day, provided May Gray, or June Gloom will allow you to see this. The only days you won't see them up there, will be weather- related, no doubt. There'll be no paragliders on super windy days, rainy days, foggy days, plus high pressure days, when wind cannot penetrate inward, from the ocean. I was at the Gliderport, on one of these days & it felt weird, almost eerie! The only thing flying on that day were several Birds of Prey, controlled by a birding group, & lots of noisy R/C airplanes, zinging through the air, like giant mosquitos! Old school hang gliders & paragliders launch off a cliff, at Torrey Pines Gliderport, immediately south of Torrey Pines Golf Course.

Why has it taken me so long to come, & to bask in the green glory of Torrey Pines Golf Course, you ask. Currently, I'm just not a golfer, but do enjoy watching Pro Golf, on TV, & in another life, I did enjoy playing a round, or 2.

I'm not sure about the price, per round here. A friend once told me, you get a discounted golf rate, if you're a San Diego citizen.

If you do indeed come & golf Torrey Pines, before you even tee up your first ball, you've already won. You'll being standing at #1 Teebox, taking in one of the most scenic ocean-hugging golf courses, in all of California...right up there, with Pebble...