San Jose Municipal Golf Course — Local services in San Jose

I have been going to San Jose Muni on a regular basis for the past 5 years as its near my home, tends to be one of the cheaper options in the Bay Area and has an overall good layout. It’s typical to expect slow moving groups, and really beat up conditions, especially the greens and sand traps (its middle of May and most of them have standing water in them).

However, today I had a surprisingly awful experience. I came after work for twilight golf. I was able to walk in and get a tee time for 6:00 pm as a twosome. The group in front of us was 3 walkers and 2 people in a cart, a five some. They played the first hole egregiously slow, and we ended up finishing hole one before they even teed off on hole 2, group in front was on the green. In the time while we waited we picked up a third player, a fellow walker. We ended up playing 3 holes in the first hour. After finishing the par 3 number 4 hole we went to 5 and they still hadn’t finished teeing off. As they were making their way to the ladies tees (two of them were playing from on those tees) I hollered over, “can you please pick up your pace of play.” They turned around visibly upset and asked me to repeat what I said, so I did. They then proceeded to get very angry and an altercation ensued when one of them walked back to us and informed us that her name was Monica and that she was one of the general managers of the course. She told me that although they are a couple minutes behind they are keeping up with pace of play and that five some are allowed on this course. Then a man that was with her that I assume was her boyfriend started to mouth off. They continued that they were keeping up with pace of play, even though the group in front of them was teeing off on the next hole, meaning they were a hole behind, but would try to pick it up. The boyfriend said that I should learn the course rules (five some are allowed here) and the rules of golf before saying anything ever again, and then it what seemed to be an attempt at being intimidating drove his cart back to us to further repeat the point.

I have never seen the option to book a five some at this course, and in looking at tee times on their own website the max you can book for is four. I would love some clarity on what the rules are, and how they will be looked at in the future. As a former manager and now business owner I am in disbelief that a manager would act in such a way at their place of business. First, by at the very least “bending” the rules sets a bad precedent for leadership among your employees and secondly for allowing her boyfriend to try and escalate things. In the end they finished 9 holes at 8:15 playing a 2 hour 25...

Update - 9/18/2020 from 1 to 4 stars - It's COVID-19 and I found a T-time at noon with discounted price for $33 walking, so I took it to try out to see how it plays. The pro-shop was quite efficient, they bummed my single T-time @ 12:45 to join the group of 2 some earlier, so I got out early, that's quite nice. The 2 youngsters I played with were quite nice. The fairways and greens were very excellent for this time of year, early fall? The round went just right, it could be faster providing it's on a Thursday, little over 4 hours. Glad there were no maintenance people driving around and I didn't see any transients walking, may be it's not on the weekend. The bunkers are still not fine and of course there're NO rakes. I only went in 1 time and I took it out of the bunker to chip. Anyhow, it was a great round with the pleasant group and other golfers. I took all the holes pictures with the SwingU satellite map.

I went here last year with some friends, made a mistake and bought a 5 weekend rounds after 1PM for $125. This is not a bad golf course, just flat and boring. The clienteles is one of the negatives things, some have no golf etiquette what so ever or even being considerate. The dress code is never enforced here, people with plain offensive T-shirts, drinking beers, getting drunk and holding everyone back. I bought the card so I had to use it 3 more time this year, the clientele is the same, but today was the worst with the Golf Course management, they had the maintenance people driving around, watering the GREEN while people are putting , didn’t wait for them to finish the putting, I called and pro-shop said it’s their maintenance guys doing their job. I know this is San Jose where anything can happen, but this is quite a disrespectful to the players. I have never seen any golf course like this in all the golf courses I’ve played for years. There were transients walking on the golf course waiting for a golf ball to hit to make trouble because they moved slowly across the fairways, I saw a bicycle rider on the golf course. None of my rounds here was faster than 4:30 hr, average 5hrs. Yes, I have one round to play on the card, and it has to be on the weekends, which is horribly slow and have to deal with all these un-golf-like things. May be I just give the credit to one of my SJ resident friend, he may...

This used to be my preferred place for driving range and cheap 18-hole until recently. I came by here December 31st for driving range. When I apply my credit card to the ball machine for a large bucket, none of the balls came out. I called the front desk regarding the situation and they said to try a pin. I tried the pin but still nothing happening. I learned that the machine wasn't running, and the front desk said to come by to get an IOU to redeem a large bucket at a later point.

I came again the next day on New Years day. Again the same situation that the machine either stopped working or they ran out of balls and the they did not have anyone to go out to pick up balls at 3pm.

Once again, I came by Saturday, January 4th and this time the machine has broken down.

The maddening thing is that there are a ton of balls inside the machine; just lift the lid and you'll see loads of balls in there. But no, unfortunately they won't just hand me a large bucket. They insist I scan the QR redeem code to get the large bucket, no matter what the case.

Why is the machine constantly breaking down? From what they've conveyed, all that mud gets into the gears and it clogs up any of the cogs from working. If you have been here for a long time, you know that they did not take care of the driving range, as the greenery is no longer there; it is nothing but wet, brown mud.

Needless to say, along with poor customer service and them refusing to give me a refund on my $16 large bucket, I am constantly handcuffed to them, and always wasting time, gas and money trying to get one large bucket of driving...