The wind was pretty calm the first time I played it, but this weekend it was easily a club and a half wind in the morning, relaxing to a 5-10 yard wind in the afternoon. The greens were very fast and the holes were cut near the edges of the greens and often on a ridge. One was less than 6 inches from a false front. I putted off the green twice but made up for it with 7 one putts including a number from 10-20 feet on the back nine.

It’s an expensive course to play on the weekend, $100 with a cart. The upside is it’s much easier to get a weekend tee time later in the week.

Note: if the GPS isn’t working in your cart and there is a little lock in the lower right corner, press the third button down on the left side then the third button down on the right side to unlock the GPS unit.

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Holes 6 and 7 are up on a hill away from the rest of the course. Both are dog-leg right and are driveable if the wind is right and you really crush it. I generally lay up with a 3 iron on 6 and try to go over the bunkers on 7.

I had considered the par 5 14th on the back 9 pretty much unreachable, but when I played with Nils last weekend, we had the wind behind us and both got our second shots hole high to the back pin placement. We had both aimed a little right since the green is back left from the fairway - next time I’ll go right at it.

The par 5 18th is reachable with a driver, 3-4 iron if you hit two good shots and the green is pretty accessible. Close your round with a birdie.

Santa Clara can get slow in the afternoons, especially on the weekends. Morning tee times can be hard to get, but are worth trying for.

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It is a short course, a par 70 with only 2 par fives. The wind can really blow in the afternoons and there is little shelter from the wind on first few holes on the back nine. On the 10th hole, there are actually lights in the fairway so that the planes flying into Moffet Field don’t land on the course. You are adjacent to Highway 237 and 101 on top of the noise from the planes, but the noise hasn’t really bothered me.

The course is kept in the usual public course condition - not great, but not terrible. There is no driving range, and the staff behind the desk (particularly one guy, I don’t know his name) can be pretty rude. As of this writing, my best round of golf was played here: 12 over during a morning round.

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Getting a tee time is hard, you generally have to call first thing in the morning the day they begin taking reservations for non-Palo Alto residents.

It can be slow in the afternoons as it attracts a number of beginning golfers. This is a good course to play if you haven’t played in a little while and want to work on getting your game back without losing too many balls.

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The fairways are tight with woods/OB on at least one side of many of them. The greens were in pretty good shape, although the overall course condition has apparently suffered over the last year. We played in the afternoon and the pace of play was really slow. That may have contributed to me not getting into the groove during this round.

I’ll play this course again, if just to try to shoot a better score than I did on my first try.

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Pace of play is usually pretty good, although it can back up in the afternoons. It is easier to get a weekend tee time here than at a lot of the other muni courses.

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It isn’t a hard course, but it is pretty well maintained and it’s nice to be able to get even a short 9 in before work. The greens are very slow in the mornings and the course is very slow (lots of beginners) in the afternoon. The driving range is not very nice, but the practice putting green is pretty good. All in all, it is about what you’d expect from a city-run 9 hole course.

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