Sandpiper Bay Golf & Country Club — Local services in Sunset Beach

When you arrive and the first thing you hear is an apology for the dire conditions of the course, you become more than a bit apprehensive about what you are about to experience, especially when you have made a ten hour trip to "enjoy" this experience. If you like to play off of rolled dirt, painted green, you won't be disappointed. Our group was told that the poor conditions were due to the abnormal winter weather. However, one need only look across the street to see a golf course which actually allowed players to play off of green growing grass, rather than the baked and rolled fairways we were forced to deal with. I felt like the people playing the course across the street represented the "Haves" while those playing Sandpiper were the "Have Nots"! Let's not forget the fact that one of the three normally available 9 hole layouts was closed due to maintenance. Given the state of the two courses still open for play, I shiver to think about the state of this third course. Not to be entirely negative, the course does offer a nice practice facility including putting and chipping greens as well as an area for honing your iron and wood skills. Ironically, there was some very nice green grass at the practice facility and around the clubhouse. I guess the inclement weather somehow avoided these locations. Therefore, should you want to adequately prepare yourself for what you will experience when hitting your irons, you are better served if you just go to the parking lot and practice hitting your irons off of asphalt. People always compare lousy courses to being cow pastures. Well, at least with a cow pasture there is plenty of grass. Need I say more.... My group is making wagers about whether this course will even be around when we visit this...

Nice course but not nice enough to overcome the extreme rudeness and lack of service from the staff. Granted we played after a lot of rain so it was cart path only. We had the earliest tee time of 9:02 for a group of 4. They didn't pull out golf carts for us until 9:05 approximately. Get to the first tee and the lady wants to do group pictures. So by the time we teed off it was around 9:15. Get our 9 finished and the cart cleaner jumps all of us and goes to each cart complaining and telling us how our round took 3 hours and they close at 5 and we won't have time for 27 holes. It only took us 2.5 hours to complete the first 9. Not bad for cart path only. We then go into the clubhouse to get something to eat with our lunch voucher and they tell us those are meant for after the round. One of the guys in the pro shop comes up to us and tells us we don't have time to eat that we're only allowed 5 minutes at the turn and if we took longer we'd lose our spot. So we order something off of the lunch to go menu which is just basic sandwiches.... They make them to order!! It took 10 minutes to get a ham and cheese sandwich. We go back outside and the same guy that fussed at us when we went in comes back at us again and this time he has the guy from the pro shop with him and they all fuss at us and are extremely rude. The cart cleaner harassed us and would not quit coming to our group and saying something to us even after we turned 9. We got our 27 holes in by 4:55 so all of this was for nothing. It also turns out that the locals know about how terrible the staff is so the reputation locally isn't good. Won't be coming back...

I’m a fairly regular golfer, and the treatment me and my group received at Sandpiper Bay was by far the worst I’ve ever experienced. From the initial warm up to tee off, we were treated with condescension by the course staff.

Every course is going to have its own rules and procedures. We don’t need to unpack how inefficient it is to have a staff member move your bag to the cart area where you can retrieve it, or some of your clubs and walk to the practice area (carts are not distributed until you’re sent off), only to walk your bag back to the cart area, place it on a bag rack, and watch as a staff member moves it to a cart under instruction from yourself as to where the bag should be placed. None of this is an issue. The issue arises when you’re treated rudely with no explanation of these processes that 90% of golf courses in America don’t follow. The staff was difficult and the entire situation was uncomfortable.

Our fourth was late. One of us is not a regular golfer and brought a handful of clubs to place in a friend’s bag. You’d have thought we executed a puppy in front of these folks. A calm explanation of the rules, and a willingness to work through it with us would’ve alleviated the entire situation. Never mind the fact that it was midday on a sweltering Friday and the course was incredibly open.

Not typically one to work in absolutes, but Sandpiper Bay is one I can write off in perpetuity. I’ve never been that angry on the 1st tee – luckily the game we all love had me back in good...