Duck Hollow Golf Club — Restaurant in Menallen Township

Though I like the restaurant, I do not enjoy golfing here. I am not a skilled golfer, but at Duck Hollow you can really see the difference between a course that requires skill and a course that's simply not very good. It is riddled with wet trenches like drainage ditches, and the ponds, deep and surrounded by foliage, are difficult to see from most angles. Still, you can assume that if the ground is sloped, which is mostly everywhere, then it is sloping into a pond, because those are also everywhere. Trees line the side of every hole, doglegged lines of trees that are the only ground separating the densely packed holes, and so when the course is even moderately busy you often have people playing other holes on the fairway in front of you trying to get back to their own fairway. That happens most courses I've played, but it reaches new peaks here. This is compounded somewhat by the back 9 actually intersecting the front 9 (around 3 and 13) so that you have people in the back 9 playing through fairways in the front 9 trying to get back to their holes without landing in one of the many ponds. I honestly don't know how ground with such a high clay content can support grass, but there is nice grass. If you get a hair under the ball though, the ground is remarkably unforgiving.

On the upside, the people who work there are very nice, the service is good, and the grounds are well maintained. The greens are tricky but they are well done. The cart path is not very nice, but it gets the job done and there is always space on the sides of them to swerve around any craters. also, while I don't like the tracks in the sand tracks from the flocks of geese that roam around the course, I do like seeing the clusters of turkeys, geese, and other animals at the course - they seldom get in the way.

No GPS on the carts, and they are electric so it's better to get a fully charged fresh one if you're going to play 18. They will leave (clean!) used ones out there for you to take, but they are not always as well charged as they could be.

+3 stars for the well maintained grass/greens, the service and food in the restaurant, and the tremendous lower body workout on those hills, and -1 for all the lost balls. The experience of pitching a ball up over a hill to find that at the top of the hill is a pond, and you were actually standing under the pond... it defies physics. So...

Goose Hollow should be the name of this course. I did not see one duck just a lot of geese notably on holes 5-7.

I was very disappointed in the lack of communication on their website. I made a tee time on line and got the surprise on my arrival that the back 9 was totally closed for maintenance, and the front 9 greens had recently been core aerated. So the 45 minute drive I made to play 18 would have to be on the aerated front 9 twice. Other courses will post a note on their website when playing conditions like this are in effect and offer a discounted green fee.

Also factor in that the core aeration of the greens had many open holes and no sand so it was like playing “Plinko”. You never knew where your put was going.

In addition, the bunkers have not seen maintenance recently. They were all in bad shape and several had grass growing in them.

The best part of the round was the friendly cart attendant who met me at my vehicle...

Actually I would rate the course 3.5. First time playing and I really enjoyed the course It is an old course but well maintained. The cart paths are rough but it doesn’t effect the play of the course Tee box’s were mowed nicely along with the fairways. Greens were medium to fast and rolled true. I struggled with the slope of the greens and 3 putted on four holes. The white tees played approximately 6150 yds and the greens are average to small Very few flat lies in the fairways which makes approach shots more challenging. The front 9 plays easier than the back The back nine has 4 or 5 difficult holes that require shot placement with little room for error I didn’t lose any golf balls but a high handicapped golfer might struggle a bit on the back nine Would...