The Hills Course, Community Golf Course, Dayton, Ohio

Once we decided to return to our home area of Dayton, Ohio Denny told me he'd like to play two area golf courses; WGC in Xenia and Community Golf Course in Kettering, Ohio.  Last week he played WGC so this week it was time to check Community off his list.  My compression fractures in my spine are still not healed, so I went along to play golf cart driver and flag tender.  Community Golf Course is one of Dayton's three municipal golf courses and has thirty six holes; the "outer" course of The Hills and the "inner" course of The Dales.  This is an older golf course but we were surprised to find that management has added some water features in the fifteen-plus years since we've played the golf course.  Since it is a city course both the Hills and Dales receive a lot of play but the course is in amazingly good shape this year.  Apparently having access to city water for irrigation helps.

The yardage from the longest, blue tees is 6304 with a rating/slope of 70.1/127.  The white tees (called the senior tees here) have a yardage of 5877 with a rating/slope of 68.2/122.  The yellow women's tees have a yardage of 5187 with a rating/slope of 70/123.  Prices to play eighteen holes during the week are $36 with a riding cart or $30 with a riding cart for singles.  I was charged $14 just to ride along with Denny which we thought was a bit steep.  We joined up at the first hole with a gentleman who was walking and offered to take his golf bag with us on the cart because the outer course does have a lot of hills.  A lot of hills.

The layouts here on both the Hills course and the Dales courses are pretty open, relying more on elevation changes and hillside slopes as challenges rather than with the usage of water hazards or sand traps.  Over the last couple of years there have been some strong straight line winds come through the area so a fair number of trees have been removed from the golf course. 

If you normally hit a pretty straight ball, you're going to have a lot of fun on this golf course.

It's hard to tell from standing at the tee box but this is the infamous "Suicide Hill" for snow sledders; steep and full of humps it sent many a sledder to the hospital over the years until the city finally put a stop to the sledding here.

The seventeenth hole boasts a new pond.

Community Golf Course is located next to Hills and Dales Park with its statue of NCR (National Cash Register) founder John Patterson.  

The City of Dayton also operates Madden Golf Course and Kitty Hawk Golf Course.  Kitty Hawk has two regulation eighteen hole golf courses and an executive golf course.  Denny and I have played Madden and Kitty Hawk also and can recommend both if you're in the area.  Actually, the Dayton area has many good golf courses that are very reasonably priced, especially if you sign up for the ubiquitous online e-mail discounts offered by most golf courses nowadays.  I'm sorry to have to have missed this one.

WGC Golf Course in Xenia, Ohio

 WGC Golf Course in Xenia, Ohio has always been one of our favorite places to play golf.

 Originally built as a nine hole course, in 1982 another nine holes were added which gives you two different golfing experiences on one course.  The front nine holes are more level and open while the back nine are hilly and have more mature trees lining the fairways.

 Considering that most of the Midwest and West have been suffering from drought conditions, Denny and I were pleased to find the course in decent shape.  Yes, the rough was a bit dry, but the fairways were nice and the greens were in really good shape.  There have been some changes; at one time the golf course had an electric fence type of system around the greens and tee boxes which caused the electric golf carts to shut off if you drove too close to the tee boxes or greens.  Those have been removed.  Currently one of the ponds on the seventh hole is almost empty while the staff digs a deeper base to hold more water in case of future drought conditions--in the meantime, it's a great place to grab a few now-exposed golf balls that had been sitting at the bottom of the pond. 

During the week there is a senior (60+) rate of $19 for the green fee and $9.39 for a riding cart to play eighteen holes.  This time I had to ride along at an additional cost of $6.57 as a non-playing rider due to the fact I am healing up from a compression fracture of the T7 and T12 vertebrae suffered in a fall.  I am truly sorry I didn't have the opportunity to play today because I know I could play the course much better than I did when we still lived in the area.

Played from the blue (longest) tees, the yardage is 6565 yards with a rating/slope of 69.3/128.  The white tees have a yardage of 6226 with a rating/slope of 67.8/124.  The gold or senior tees' yardage is 5479 with a rating/slope of 64.1/115 and the red or women's tee yardage is 4671 with a rating/slope of 66.3/109.  A new fun feature is the "family tees", a set of green tees placed much closer (perhaps 100-125 yards from the green) which allow young and or new players to play a shorter, easier course.  So kudos to the management for thinking of the upcoming generation of golfers.

There are sand traps and a couple of water features but not so many to impede your enjoyment of the game.  The greens aren't all that tricky by appearance but there are some deceptive slopes on a few of them that keep the putting interesting.  Play was a bit slow as this is a popular golf course but we had a beautiful Ohio fall day of bright sunshine and low humidity so Denny and I just enjoyed being out in the fresh air while one of us played golf.

As with many golf courses now, if you sign up on the golf course's website you will have an opportunity to play at even more discounted prices.  I didn't bother to do that since we're only in the area for a couple more weeks and there are a ton of great golf courses in this part of Ohio.  Which I won't be playing, but next week we'll be on the golf course in Kettering, Ohio.  Stay tuned.