I love to play golf and Raleigh has some really nice golf courses and some rally nice places to practice golf. Unfortunately Wildwood Green does not offer either. The practice areas are the worst in Raleigh.
The practice area here has a putting and chipping green along with a sand trap. The putting green is in poor shape, the chipping green is small. The sand trap is full of gravel and rocks, which is just like the traps on the golf course so I guess it is a good place to practice for this golf course. The driving range is small and they use artificial turf mats which is fine,except these mats are ancient and you cant get the ball to stay on then because they are in such bad shape.
The first tee lines up like a municipal course, the starters don't work off of the tee sheet but by who walks up first, so if you have a 10 am tee times, show up at 9:00 am and wait on the tee box, because if you show up at 9:50 you may not get off until noon. The pace of play is really slow about 2:45-3:00 hours per nine.
The tee boxes have no grass and the fairways are like hitting off of the parking lot, baked clay with some weeds, and a little bit of Bermuda grass. There are rocks in the sand traps, many traps have no sand at all.
I was out with my nephew and thought that this short public course would be good for a 12 year old. We were harassed by older men that clearly don;t like kids on the golf course, despite the fact my nephew's 95 was probably better than their score and since we were waiting on every shot we were not holding up the golf course. We didn't see much of the rangers but when I asked them to talk to the group behind us that kept hitting into us and made unnecessary comments about kids on ""their golf course"", he looked at us and drove in the opposite direction. When we made the halfway point I went in to ask for assistance from the pro shop, but the counter was empty and no one was there to help. The snack bar girl gave me a business card of the manager and suggested that we call him Not surprisingly, he never returned my call. Why would I expect that management cared?
Since this experience we have been out to River Ridge and were treated well and have returned two more times. Even though I live just 5 minutes from Wildwood Green, I will drive 20 minutes to River Ridge for now on.
They are much more friendly and management is visible and interested in making sure golfer have a nice day.
Pros: that there are other optionsin Raleigh
Cons: poor conditions, slow play,
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