We played Bougainvillea Golf Club today. After setting up a tee time online at the ASU Karsten course, I got an e-mail coupon to play Bougainvillea for $35/person (w/ cart) so that’s what we did.

The course is pretty much straight in front of you the whole way. There isn’t much rough to speak of but the greens were hard and it was hard to stop the ball on the green from an approach shot. Even a 100 yard shot with a 52 degree wedge released from the front of the green all the way to the back (and the green sloped down towards the fairway).

The greens were fast an undulating and a little patchy, but the ball rolled true more often than not. The wind really kicked up around 11:00am and we played the rest of the round in about a 1 1/2 club wind. The wind and the greens were about the only defense the course had, otherwise it was there for the taking. I played it from the tips and managed to shoot 88.

There are three par 5’s and three par 3’s on each side (instead of the usual 2) which was an interesting quirk. The par 5’s are pretty easy with wide fairways, though some of the greens were bunkered enough to make running it onto the greens a little tricky.

It was a nice round, but I doubt we’ll go back there on our next trip. If I lived in the area, I’d definitely play this course from time to time.