Valley of the Eagles Golf Club — Restaurant in Elyria

I really do like playing here, and it's an incredibly scenic course. Just the more I play here, some things keep bothering me more and more.

First off, the good. The course is incredibly scenic, especially for being dang near the middle of Elyria. It's like an entirely different world when you drive down into the valley. It also can be a very challenging course, but offers plenty of tee boxes to choose from to adjust the difficulty. There's a lot of elevation changes in all the right places. Greens meant to be difficult are difficult because of elevation and appropriate bunkering. Fairway bunkers are well-placed in all the right places.

In short, the course has good bones. Really well designed.

BUT... while there's nothing flagrantly wrong with the course conditions, there's things that make me want to play back here less and less each time I play it.

The tee boxes. Generally in good shape and well taken care of. But there's a LOT of tee boxes that are not just "unlevel", but so unlevel that you literally shouldn't put a tee marker there. Some have settled so badly since the initial course setup that you really can't stand anywhere level in that entire tee box. Side slopes on tee box, bumpy tee boxes, downslopes on tee boxes, they're all there. Only thing I haven't seen is an upslope on a tee box, so I guess that's a win?

The greens have the most weird grain to them. I've never seen a course in Northeast Ohio that has such obvious grain. If it's shiny on these and downhill, that ball isn't going to stop. It makes it extremely difficult to read the break on these greens, and they never seem to roll like you'd expect.

The greens are also extremely firm. Like good luck holding these greens no matter how much spin it. Ordinarily this isn't too much of a problem, but the undulation of these greens mixed with the EXTREMELY firm state of these greens means that even when you land a wedge exactly on your landing spot, it takes such a huge bounce that it's out of place, or sometimes just off the green. When we've seen inches of rain in the last few weeks and you hit a full 9 iron into the green from the 150 marker, yet the green shows no indication of where it pitched, you know they're firm.

There's almost no fringe anywhere on the course. Given how firm the greens are, you often end up two inches off the green. Normally you'd be putting from there, but not at Valley of the Eagles. It's just green straight to rough in most places.

Tee box placement relative to overhanging branches. This one really only applies to the tips, and if you're playing the tips, I guess just deal with it. But there's a few holes that are nearly unfair because trees have grown over the years and haven't been trimmed back. #1 is the first you'll notice. The tee shot is supposed to be hard from the tips, but they literally can't even use the right side of the tee box, and it's getting to the point that from the leftmost part of the black tees, you need to hit a 40+ yard slice or you'll be 180+ in to the green (surrounded by water, which is really super cool by the way...) from the left rough. There's some others as well that you're basically forced to either play to the rough or hit a huge shape on your shot.

Overall like I said, the course has really good bones, and the condition isn't flagrantly "bad", but there's just these things that really need a little bit of elbow grease and time to fix them, and it would make this course even better than it already is.

Oh, and a range would have been nice, but a 100 yard wedge area would suffice instead... or heck, at a minimum, put a few nets out there and let us hit ten balls into the nets to warm up. That #1 tee shot is a bear already, going into it cold makes it...

I give this poor review with mixed emotions. My wife and I just left the restaurant on February 17, 2019 around 6:30 pm. This is the 4th time we have been there. This time was very disappointing. Although the food is good and poor service can be excused occasionally, this time borders on egregious. Here is what happened. We excused the fact that our waitress was inattentive when she took a while to take our food order. We excused the fact that the waitress said she would send someone to change the table-side TV channel when she took our drink order but forgot. (My wife doesn’t enjoy MMA fighting while dining - go figure). We excused the fact that my wife’s burger order was severely undercooked (with blood on the plate) even though she ordered it medium. (They took it back and gave her a new one.) We even excused the fact that the waitress forgot my beer order and it was only brought 10 minutes later when I mentioned it to the supervisor that brought my wife’s new burger. (The supervisor said she wasn’t charging me for the beer)

We somewhat sympathized with the waitress when she apologized and said it was a bad night, she got busy, she is getting old, and she sometimes forgets.

What I have a hard time excusing is the fact that after presenting us with a detailed bill, and after taking my credit card, we discovered that we were charged $10 more than the original bill. Exactly $10. After bringing it to the attention of the supervisor. We were told that it was a mistake and the waitress charged our table for someone else’s drink.

The resolution was to credit my card for the erroneous overcharge and present me with an actual correct bill - along with an apology.

I’m 66 years old. We have dined out thousands of times. I can’t recall ever having additional charges added to my bill after presenting my credit card.

I leave the restaurant with the feeling that I was treated like:

Sorry you had a bad night. We got our money. Hope to see you again.

Maybe it’s just me. I am not the kind of person that is looking for something for nothing. However my wife and I left this place with a bad taste in our mouth tonight.

I feel compelled to write this review and warn others to be aware.

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In fairness and as a follow up, I have changed my rating to 4 stars. The GM called me today to thank me for bringing this incident to his attention. He assured me that he investigated the incident has taken steps to ensure that this does not happen again. I believe he is proud of what he and his people are doing and how far they have come in a short period of time. Baring this isolated incident, so am I. It is rare to get bad service or food at Valley of the Eagles. It is also rare to get a follow-up apologetic call from a restaurant Manager. FYI - I was not offered nor did I accept any gratuity for...

Tons and tons to like about this golf course.

First and Foremost, a tremendous piece of property. If this wasn't a golf course, it would be a great place to go for a walk. Phenomenal views of the Black River that were just awesome. There were multiple holes that used the river perfectly. Additionally, we got to see tons of cranes, other interesting birds, and deer.

Secondly, lots and lots of really really good golf holes. I really don't think there was a bad hole on the course. Maybe a couple holes that were only "okay" but I would rate the vast majority of holes in the good to great range. There was a stretch on the back 9 along the river that was just phenomenal. The greens were well shaped, and some greens had tiers, false fronts, run-off areas, etc that made things fun. 18 is a hole that is fair, but has probably broken a lot of hearts in its day.

Third, course was very well maintained. Divots were filled on the tee boxes of the par 3's, and the greens were well taken care of and consistent. Down hill putts and pitches were very quick, which is fair. The Maintenance Team here clearly knows what they are doing and does it with a lot of pride.

Fourth, if you are a very good golfer, I suspect the back tees will be an awesome experience for you. I am a fairly long hitter. I played the second furthest back tee and hit lots of short irons and full wedges for approaches. It would of been a very different story from the tips. Many of tips would be 30+ yards further back and looked pretty brutal. Mid and long irons into those narrow greens would of been tough, but would be a great challenge for a better golfer.

The only negatives are very minor:

1. You basically have to drive a cart. There are very very long treks between holes. I typically like to walk, but most people ride anyway so most wouldn't even think twice about it.
2. There are a few stretches of holes that run right next to each other and if the course is busy you will be playing right next to other groups.

All in all, the big positives far out weigh the minor negatives and make for a tremendous golf experience that I would recommend anyone try at least once. I hope this place stays in business a long time and is able to keep the course as beautiful as...