Orange County Golf Course Reviews
Black Gold Golf Course Reviews
Yorba Linda, CA
73.1 rating; 133 slope |
Black Gold Golf Course Overview: One of a multitude of Southern
California golf courses characterized by chaparral and holes cut into
and around the sides of mountains, this course offers several distinct aspects
of these design elements. The front nine is more flat and generally easier and the back nine is much tighter with a few very difficult holes. The best golf holes, however, are reviewed below:
Black Gold Hole 2: This short par 4 is uphill but the golfer can go for the green from the tee shot, the key being to miss the multitude of bunkers surrounding it. The more conventional approach requires only two irons, but the tee shot must avoid the junk left and right of the fairway, that will yield penalty strokes.
Black Gold Hole 2: This short par 4 is uphill but the golfer can go for the green from the tee shot, the key being to miss the multitude of bunkers surrounding it. The more conventional approach requires only two irons, but the tee shot must avoid the junk left and right of the fairway, that will yield penalty strokes.
Black Gold Hole 5: This par 4 is uphill with OB right and hazard left. It's also fairly long and has an angled green around a bunker short-left that really needs to be avoided.
Black Gold Hole 6: This dogleg right par five has a risk/reward drive. If hit far right enough, the dogleg is cut and there is a relatively short attempt to reach the green in two. Too far right, however, and there is OB. The farther right one goes also makes the angle more severely over the big bunker right of the green and that green is more narrow from there with trouble behind. More conservatively, laying up short of the bunkers and then staying left on the second shot can make this a fairly easy par for most.
Black Gold Hole 8: A long and difficult par three, a good tee shot is a must to make par or better. Short right and long left will usually lead to bogey in the best of cases.
Black Gold Hole 10: This par three isn't too tough to negotiate but does have trouble way left and way short/right.
Black Gold Hole 11: This intriguing par four has a very narrow landing area for the drive, but the landing area actually widens if the player is gutsy and flies the inside edge of the environmentally sensitive hill to the left of the hole. A shorter approach to the green will help as it is a tough green to put and has a canyon short left that will gobble anything pulled too far.
Black Gold Hole 13: A par five that has trouble on both sides. A good drive will send the ball flying over the last visible part of the fairway down into nothingness. If hit straight, that is a good thing and makes it reachable in two; if offline, a ball search might begin. The approach is back uphill over a large bunker to the right and with hazard left.
Black Gold Hole 18: The finishing par 5 has a terrifying drive uphill between OB left and hazard right. From there, the hole flattens out and has a lake that will threaten 2nd shot layups or approach shots going too far right.
