Manakiki Golf Course — Local services in Willoughby Hills

2nd time playing here. It's a good golf course. Layout is decent. Never a big fan of courses where I can only hit driver a few times per 9. In fact, 2 holes. 2 holes are reasonable driver holes. And 1 of those is #8, which is ridiculous from the back tees. No view of the landing area around the corner on a 440 yard Par 4. Hit a heavy draw, hope it doesn't draw too much, feel great about your shot, then find out you went thru the fairway and are completely blocked out by a huge tree on the right... Fun!

We called to find out when they aerated, because I NEVER want to play a course that was aerated recently. "Aerated at the beginning of the month. (October)" Awesome. A month to heal means the greens should be great! Umm... No. Greens were the sandiest greens I've played in years. Clearly very recently aerated. Tee boxes were sandy, too.

Make the turn at 2:15 minutes. Pull up to the clubhouse and notice there are 3 groups on 10 tee. 1 just teed off and is 100 yards down the fairway 2 more waiting on the tee. So, we asked to play the front again (hate doing that) and were allowed. So that was nice, at least. The course is nice during the year (not this time). Kind of mad about the aeration. A little mad we didn't get to play the back 9. I'll be back at some point.

We got held up the last 4 holes on the 2nd 9. About 10 minutes after finishing, we see the group we were behind on the first front 9 waiting on the tee on 18. Glad we didn't suffer through that on the back 9.

The course is worth playing. It's challenging. Makes you hit 3 irons and 3 woods off the tee more than driver. Greens are tough when they are in good shape. Some holes are too tight for their own good. Wish we didn't drive 45 minutes to play an...

Overbooked, overcrowded, overpriced, and some of the rudest staff I have ever encountered at a golf course. You deserve a 0. When people book tee times...they don't book them expecting to be paired with strangers. So instead of honoring the times that people take, this place will jam pack as many people as possible to collect as much coin as they can (shocker.) Want to have a nice solo round? Want to have a relaxing round with a friend you haven't seen in a while? Forget about it...because you're going to be paired with random people every time. We played here a few years back when it was $40 (Which is still an insane price for what you get). The starter took up an attitude with us because we weren't "ready" 20 minutes before our tee time. What??? One of the many reasons we didn't go back for years. I was hoping things had changed in my hiatus from this course, but couldn't have been more wrong. Fast forward to 2025, now you get to pay them SIXTY ONE DOLLARS for their starter to insult you, and the guys at the counter to ignore you like you don't exist for 5 minutes while they literally fart and carry on conversations about nonsense. Telling people to call the golf administration office is outright insulting to us at this point. This has been a problem for years that you have clearly done nothing about. I know for certain I am not the only one to have issues with the starters smug attitude and power trip. Save your time, frustration, and money folks. There are plenty of other local courses that operate with professionalism and respect for...

This is one of my favorite public courses. It is a great layout and a beautiful piece of property. The course is very well maintained for a public track.

Although I love the course, I have had some very poor experiences lately, with the most recent one coming this past Sunday, August 28th. We teed off at 11:50 behind a 52-person group that started teeing off at 9:00. It was complete chaos. It looked like these people had never even played golf before. They were taking forever -- we were on a 6 hour pace of play.

We get to about hole 14 and had enough. The big group of players in front of us had some groups playing in 5-somes! It was taking FOREVER. We even had our golf balls taken a few different times by this big group (watched them pick them up) and when we confronted them they denied it. We called the pro shop to let them know that they had to get a ranger out there to usher things along but no ranger ever came out.

After nearly 5 hours and only playing about 13 holes, we went to the pro shop to let them know how ridiculous it was out there. They basically laughed in our face and said "oh well". We were very surprised at the response. It was as if they basically let this big group take over the course and do whatever they wanted. No concern for actual golfers that had to play behind this joke of an outing. Very surprised that we weren't given a proper rain check. No one should have to sign up for a 6 hour round when playing a great course such...