Willow Springs Golf Course — Local services in San Antonio

Please read the 1 star reviews written recently, and understand that something is very wrong with the staff at Willow Springs. We had an 8:40a tee time. We could not start teeing off until 8:50a because the marshall had not kept on pace that morning. I was playing single with a rider along with 3 polite young men trying the course for the first time. The first incident was on the sixth, after cart warnings started going off that we were 15 minutes off pace. We had an employee drive up and ask us to pick up the pace. We told him we’d been playing as fast as we could, but we weren’t off the first tee box until 8:55a. We also let him know we were being hit into (at a polite distance) on every par 4 we played as the group behind us was frustrated at the late start time. He drove off, we got to the turn at the 9th, and had to wait again for the foursome ahead of us to start, so we were fully on pace at 9 holes. But the silly cart alerts kept going off, and I assume someone in the front office thinks they should be watching those. The men behind us asked to play through at the 13th. By the 15th, we saw we had an actual tail - a different young employee in a cart following us at 20 yards who had not talked to us. We played to the end of the hole and asked what she was doing. She took her airpods out and said, “Oh I’m here to keep you on pace.” We said we had been playing constantly, that we had been forced to start late and let a group play through. She said, oh ok well, I’ve been observing you and have some recommendations… which she doled out, underwhelmingly. We told her that the entire delay had nothing to do with our play, but with course management of tee times this morning causing impatient golfers. She drove off. We would observe her later recording a raccoon at the 17th, so clearly incredibly important things going on. We started the par three 18th just as the group that played through finished on the green. When we finished at 1:45p, the total run time from when we were allowed to tee off at 8:50 was 4 hours 55 minutes, INCLUDING the play through. Without that, it was 4:45 minutes, well within pace of play. So we all paid $60 plus to get repeatedly (and creepily) harassed, hear play suggestions from a person stalking us for 2 holes, and be told we were causing course delays. I’ve never had anything remotely like this happen at any ACGT courses (or anywhere else) and I don’t expect to again, because I’m certainly not returning to Willow Springs. It’s a shame, because the greens were looking pretty...

This course is very difficult under the best of conditions. So glad the bunkers have been filled with LOTS of sand. Disappointing points: Fairways are VERY bare with sparse vegetation. Understanding that it IS winter and much of the Bermuda is dormant, STILL, they are "hardpan" for the vast majority of them.

The roughs - even just off the fairways - had TALL, dense winter rye growing. We lost a few balls that strayed off the fairway. Any that went several feet off the fairway were surely lost.

Pin placements on greens were ridiculous. Almost impossible to read! A ball would follow an expected pathway and veer wildly off-line around the hole on many greens. The greens were actually in surprisingly good shape, rolled well and all, with the exception of the usual "this-time-of-the-year" Poa Annua grass invasion.

Tee boxes were quite variable - from bare to plush. Those on #'s 8, 17 & 18 were GORGEOUS with thick green grass planted for the winter. The other tee boxes were 'meh'.

It was a tough round on an absolutely beautiful day! Like they say: "A bad day at the golf course is better than a good day NOT on the golf course." Many of us played very 'forgettable' rounds, scoring pretty much 10 to 15 strokes higher than we usually do AND higher than the past three times we've played this course in just the past month or so. Disappointing!

SO, bottom line - we would strongly urge the greens keepers to weed whack the long grass off the fairways. There's no good reason why we should have to...

Today I had my worst golfing experience in over 20 years. The Willow Springs golf course is in unbelievable, atrocious condition. I have regularly played the San Antonio golf courses for over 30 years, and I have been a member of the Alamo City Golf Trail since its inception. I was shocked at the condition of Willow Springs. Bare and rock-hard tee boxes, bare fairways with no grass - dormant or otherwise, patchy bumpy greens with bare spots and weeds, millions of little muddy worm mounds covering the entire course (this has been an uncorrected problem for years). My group today finally couldn’t tolerate the conditions, which also included sticky mud covering our shoes and the wheels of our carts, and we quit after nine holes. It is unethical to collect a fee from patrons to play this course. There is no excuse for the condition of this course. Course condition across all ACGT courses is an issue, but Willow Springs...