Cedar Ridge Golf Club Review

Yes, another golf course review.  Hey, been playing some new ones, and it is very exciting.  Today, the course in question is Cedar Ridge in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.  It's actually right next door to Meadow Brook, which I played a couple of months ago.  Couldn't see one from the other, but they're less than a mile apart, I think.  They're fairly similar courses too, neither are very long, both are on fairly small properties, though Cedar Ridge is comfortably bigger than Meadow Brook.  Not big, by any means, but they didn't run out of room and stick in some kind of wacky holes.  Too bad, because given the choice between the two, I'd definitely take Meadow Brook.

Condition-wise, there's no contest, Cedar Ridge is in much better shape.  It's not ready to host the professionals, but there is green grass in places other than the greens.  The conditions of the greens were about the same, but I preferred Meadow Brook to Cedar Ridge, the greens at Cedar Ridge just seemed a bit off to me.  The fairways were ridiculously narrow, I only hit one out of fourteen, which is one more than my younger brother, who shot a 73.  Sure, they may not have been important to hit, but it's nice to do so anyway.  So, in that regard, these two course are alike.

There is something that I have to address, something that is most definitely affecting my judgment of Cedar Ridge.  Trees.  I spent all day dealing with trees, and I was getting real sick of it.  I managed an 80, even with having to hit under/around/over/through/into trees on more than half of the holes.  I don't know if I could have managed 73, but I would have done better than 80.  The place doesn't even have that many trees, but I was managing to find all of them.  I believe there were only three holes where I didn't have tree trouble, not counting the par 3's, of course.  Then again, a tree did provide me with what my brothers and I all agreed was the luckiest shot they or I had ever witnessed.  On the 11th hole, a 95 yard par 3 over a pond, I hit a big pull into trees long and left, only for the golf ball to come bounding back onto the green and stopping about 7 feet away from the hole.  I missed the birdie (of course), but that shot was ridiculous.

The course started off with four par 4's in a row, none of them very long, with the third hole being just under 300 yards.  Nothing really interesting about them.  Really, none of the holes on the front nine are all that interesting, it's pretty standard parkland golf in southern Pennsylvania.  Not really very much in the way hazards, or interesting features, just golf.

The back nine is a little more interesting.  The tenth is a short par 4 where you can't drive it more than 220 yards, with ponds cutting the green off from the fairway.  I've already mentioned the tiny 11th hole, and after a mid-length par 5 and a par 4 flanked by trees, the 14th is probably the most difficult hole on the course.  It's 430 yards, the fairway isn't wide, and there's out-of-bounds left.  I hit a good drive, terrible second, and miraculously got up and down for par.  Seriously, that doesn't happen often.  The 15th is similar to the 10th, where a pond cuts the hole in two, but the hole is a bit longer, so the second is longer as well.  The 16th is an awkwardly narrow short par 5, and the 17th is a short par 3, which my youngest brother played in a most ingenious fashion.  He took out his cleek (the equivalent of a two iron, but a wood, gave it a little three-quarter swing, and stopped a few feet past the hole.  Got it way closer than my other brother or I did, and we used more traditional wedges.  The last hole was another short par 4, which I birdied with a good drive, a good pitch, and a six foot putt.


So, why did I prefer Meadow Brook over Cedar Ridge?  Well, other than the aforementioned trees, Meadow Brook was just more fun.  It was goofy, it was silly, it was more enjoyable.  Cedar Ridge tried to take itself seriously, but it's just not good enough for it.  Meadow Brook felt like it had a sense of humor, so for that reason, if you're considering an inexpensive round of golf in the Gettysburg area, I would recommend Meadow Brook.

 My Twitter

Meadow Brook Golf Course Review

If you expect golf courses to be green, lush expanses of grass, first off, that's wrong and you should feel bad.  Secondly, you may want to look elsewhere.  Meadow Brook, which is in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, is not the golf course for you.  The fairways are clearly not irrigated, so they're nice and brown.  Well, I say fairways, but what they are sort of recommended playing fields.  There's not much of a difference between fairway and rough, and when there is, the fairways are 20 yards wide at most.  Surprisingly, the greens are in very good condition.  I was at the Penn State golf course this summer, and the greens at the Blue Course, the supposed championship course, were in worse shape, and that was a month earlier in the summer.  Having lots of experience with greens in terrible shape, it is nice not to have any big gaping bare spots in the green.

The last hole, a short par 4

This isn't the most conventional golf course in the world.  It's a par 72, but it's under 6,300 yards.  The front is over 3,300 yards, which is fairly typical, but the back nine is under 3,000, which is not so typical.  Playing the course, I can understand why.  The property is not very big, and they really had to squeeze 18 holes onto it.  It shows, the 13th hole is a par 5 that doglegs 90 degrees after about 250 yards, and the fairway is crammed up against the property line along the first section of fairway, and the rest of the hole plays down a big hill right along a pond.  There's a 120 yard par 3 with an island green.  Somehow in this tiny place, there's a 615 yard par 5, though the tee wasn't all the way back when I played it.  Not that it needed to be harder, I made a double bogey playing from 540 yards.  There's a par 4 that said 340 yards on the scorecard, but it played right into the wind and felt closer to 440 yards.  The ninth hole drops about 100 feet on the tee shot, and the drive has to split two groups of trees somehow perfectly placed right where a good drive will land.  To make it even weirder, these trees are only about 30 yards apart.  The green climbs up almost as much as the fairway dropped down.  Okay, that's an lie, but it did slope pretty hard from back to front.  Not a green where you want to be above the hole.

The par 3 15th

What did I think of the place?  It was weird in places, and that 13th hole really did not work, but I liked it.  It was out there, and it wasn't afraid of it.  It's certainly an exercise in routing skill, it took nothing short of genius to get a full golf course in that area.  It wasn't that hard either, sure, I enjoy the occasional challenge, but having to work for bogey all the time gets tiresome.  It's nice to go to a place where you don't have to work too hard, but isn't so easy as to be boring.  As I said, it was never boring.  It was a very nice day while I played, late afternoon into evening, not too hot, nice and sunny, perfect golf weather.  Really, can't ask for more than that.