Moorpark CC, Moorpark. Creekside and Canyon Crest Nines, by Peter Jacobsen and Jim Hardy, 2004.

It’s a red flag when you play with a member and he freely admits that two of the three nines here have at least one hole that should just be blown up. He wasn’t wrong, either, although I still preferred the Creekside nine (the member despises the fourth hole) to the Canyon Crest, which doesn’t have any terrible holes (but mostly because none of them are interesting enough even to hate).

Ultimately, this is the issue with the course. Most of the holes are fine but bland in their modern style, entirely require using a cart, feature 4-5 tee boxes per hole, and notably artificial mounding and bunkering.

I did quite like the Creekside fifth hole, which takes a hill that would typically be turned into a great-looking but boring to play drop shot par 3 and instead turns it into a driveable par 4. It’s not the best reachable par 4 you’ll ever play, but I have to applaud the choice to be different, at least. (Of course, the following hole is the bland drop shot par 3 you would expect and you have to drive up a hill to get to the tee just to play back down again. Sigh.)

I don’t love to contrast courses just because they happen to be close, but Moorpark is basically five minutes from Rustic Canyon and yet it’s hard to imagine two courses less alike. No doubt there are some people who prefer the kind of golf offered at Moorpark. I am not one of them.

California 5th Quintile [2016]