Old Landing Golf Course

Although the closest golf course to our campground is the Baywood Greens Golf Course, it was a little too pricey for our budget at $109 per person for an eighteen hole round of golf. If we had the funds to indulge, this would be the golf course we would play in the area of Millsboro, Long Neck or Rehoboth Beach, Delaware as the golf course is gorgeous as seen from the roadway. It appears they are also adding another nine holes in a links-type format.

However, Denny and I drove the few extra miles to the Old Landing Golf Course in Rehoboth Beach to play at a much cheaper price. Normally the cost is $49 per person to play eighteen holes with a riding cart on weekdays, however we chose to play after 2 PM which lowered the cost to $37 each. It was a hot and muggy day and the golf course staff had turned off the drinking fountains that were placed around the golf course and there are no coolers of water on the course. Fortunately Denny and I had brought our own water although it would have been nice to have water on the course.

We had actually driven out the day before to play golf but discovered the golf course was closed for aeration, even though we had called on Saturday and were told the course would be open and no tee times were necessary or even taken for those who play after 2PM. They were aerating the greens but not the fairways. At the current time, this golf course is in pretty poor condition, with dying fairways filled with crab grass. Granted, the area has received a lot of rain with Hurricane Irene and leftovers from Tropical Storm Lee, but the conditions of the greens, tee boxes and fairways would indicate a problem long before all the recent rains. That's a shame, because the golf course is nicely set up, plays well for the golf who hits shorter, straighter shots and has enough ponds and sand traps to make the golf course interesting.

When we arrived at 2PM there were only three other cars in the parking lot and only 2 golfers in one golf cart in view on the hole ahead of us. The two men ahead of us played rather slowly so we allowed the single golfer behind us to go ahead of us, thinking the twosome would also allow the single through. Instead they joined up to play and thus managed to slow us up through the entire front nine. Play went more quickly on the back nine when two of the three eventually left the course without finishing (it may have been another single we allowed to play through who was hitting in to them when they refused to allow him to play through also.) Considering there was no one ahead of this threesome it was the rudest behavior we've seen on the golf course in a while.Two of the holes on the back nine were roped off to golf carts due to soggy, boggy conditions. On these same holes you also have a few houses along the fairways but there is a thin stand of trees to help protect them from golf balls. I don't know if the soggy conditions have helped breed mosquitoes, but they were thick yesterday as we played so bring mosquito repellent with you if you decide to play here.

The condition of the golf course was disappointing for the price we had to pay to play. The layout of the course is nice, with the yardage from the blue tees being 6097 yards with a rating/slope of 68.7/114. From the white tees it's 5830 yards and 67.6/111 and from the red tees the yardage is 5494 with a rating/slope of 70.8/115. The shorter yardage granted us a few pars although I must admit we were playing "winter rules" due to the condition of the fairways and greens. At times the fairways were like playing on hard pan and at times a mud pen. But it allowed us to check yet another state from our list, leaving us with Maryland and Oklahoma yet to play.