Centennial Golf Club — Restaurant in Town of Carmel

I played Lakes Meadows

Played here for the first time ever this passed week. It is being added to my once a year list. I paid $40 through Tee Off with a coupon and it's been on my radar for a while. At an hour drive from home, I have many top tier courses in that range so I tend to get a bit picky.

Conditions: Superb. We've had a severe lack of rain in the tri-state area this summer and it shows on courses. Out of play areas were burnt out, but anything reasonably in play was nice and lush. They were spot watering any problem areas and it seems to work wonderfully. The fairways were soft enough to take a healthy divot, yet ran out quite a bit. The rough was thick and punishing, really making hitting the fairway important. The greens... The greens were running between a 10.5-11 and were rolling smooth. They looked a little burnt and beat up in areas but that was just visual and didn't cause any issue. Bunkers were nice and soft and not full of rocks like other courses.

Layout: It's a very visual course. Almost every tee box you justice stand there and want to take in the view. Most of the holes have lots of undulations and it requires precise tee shots. Very easily you can run across a fairway with a good tee shot. There are bunkers and/or water almost always in play. There are many short par 4s that are tempting to leave yourself a chip shot in, or reachable par 5s. *Meadows #8 is a short Par 4. From the whites it was 290 to the center of the green guarded by bunkers. A perfect drive landed me dead center of the green with a 25ft put for eagle which I sank! *

Facilities: Theres multiple practice putting and chipping greens, a practice bunker, and a grass driving range with realistic artificial turf as well. It was all immaculate and included in your greens fees. The club house is large and we'll maintained.

Staff: This is where I had an issue. We arrived half an hour before our tee time and planned to hit the range. Immediately the starter was trying to rush us off the range and to the first tee (it was wide open btw). So I say we're going to hit our small bucket and we'll be there in 10 minutes. We get to the first tee box 15 minutes early of our tee time and are getting our equipment ready to go (marking our balls, tees in pocket, emptying our pockets into our bags. The starter proceeded to drive up to our tee box and lecture us on pace of play, to keep ahead of the group behind us and so forth like we're new golfers. And mind you this is 15 minutes early of our tee time. He was very rude about it and who the hell wants to get worked up before teeing off for your round?

Our pace ended up being 1:50 minutes for 9 holes our first time playing there with a threesome. On the turn the same starter/ranger asked if we were making the turn, and suggested that we should pick up the pace... Needless to say we were a little miffed about him, and with absolutely no one in front or behind, we played two balls now and again on certain holes. We were still 2:05 on our second 9.

One good thing is we were able to hassle free bring a cooler on the course. One golfer in our group is diabetic. He carries a cooler with him with insulin and some sugary drinks. Some courses stop us and we have to explain and some even ask to look inside...

Also, there were drink girls on course everywhere.

Overall 5 stars. Other than the starter issue it was amazing. Pictures being added to...

Played 11/6 mid day. Arrival was muted, there is no staff any where in sight and not a lot of direction where to go if you’re first timer. I make my way into the pro shop, check in for my group, the young man behind the counter could not have been more indifferent and aloof. No eye contact or even notion of being remotely welcoming. Mind you it wasn’t that busy. I pay with my credit card only to have it dismissively tossed back to me on the counter fee even though my hand was stretched out. No carts ready for whatever reason, so have to lug bag to practice green and back to range. Even though they say that “1 rider” per cart, there isn’t enough carts for that, so bit of false advertisement. Our foursome got 2 carts on the tee time. People behind and in front had 2 in a cart. The course itself is very scenic and very hard. It had net rained for a drew days, yet the course was very wet. The balls were plugging in the rough and the fairway, so needless to say the balls were hard to find. Greens were rolling ok, but tons of ball marks everywhere. Overall, it was ok experience, $73 a person isn’t so bad. Decent practice faculty, mid day in November, you can’t see where the ball is landing on the range. Carts should really have the computers to show you where to hit, as a first timer, it was hard to gauge where to hit or how much room one had. Given the distance, I won’t frequent, but would go back to give it...

I have to say this was one of the worst experiences I have ever had. I've have worked in golf for many years from resorts to high end private country clubs and I understand how guests or members should be treated. I can honestly say I have never experienced such poor service. Price for our round and rental clubs 145 dollars. Our round started with the gentlemen in the pro shop that was rude and not willing to speak to us as we paid. A member of our group asked how he was doing and he was unwilling to respond. This is unacceptable and embarrassing to the club. I would have personally left right then and there but I flew hours to play with my group. As our round progressed we had multiple maintenance carts drive by as were teeing off and putting. Three on the same hole!! One maintenance cart did stop but decided to speak loudly on the cell phone while we were putting. Not to mention the next hole where the fairway mower would not stop mowing in front of us as we teed off and hit from the fairway. Well that's ok we will just grab a drink from the beverage cart that we never saw once in 9 holes. Overall, poor experience which is a shame because the course was challenging and in pretty good shape. Golf is a service industry and it seems that management is not demanding this type of performance from...