Pb Dye Golf Club

$76 (cart included), played on Tuesday, April 2021 at 11:00 AM

Play here all the time, very underrated course for Maryland. Great design, difficult for someone shooting under 80. Should rank with the other top courses in Maryland, if it had the exposure.

$26 (cart included), played on Sunday, June 2020 at 1:00 PM

Traveling home through this rolling hilly area and this 1999 PB Dye came up on my GPS located 10 minutes off I-270.........we're stopping. Only having time for nine (9) holes and the Front 9 had the first five (5) holes open, we decided to go. Paid $30 9/cart ($55 18/cart) and headed out on this open rolling terrain layout. With the five (5) tee selections you can chose from Black 7,071yd/72.2/136 down to 5,035yd/68.3/123 on this challenging 36/36 design. Starting from the Gold tees (3,460yd/35.3/134) I changed to Green (3,279yd) when I hit #5 a 484yd Par 4 and #6 a 449yd Par 4 that offer nothing but trouble from tee to green and long yardages. Holes #1 a 377yd Par 4 and #2 a 133yd Par 3 will be your only easy, straight forward holes on the Front 9, enjoy them. The #3 is a 530yd dogleg left Par 5 that needs a 230yd drive to see the landing area for your 2nd shot. Pay attention to the pin positions because these large undulating greens are non-typical shaped and three (3) putts will raise it's ugly head. The cart supplied touch screen GPS will supply all the yardage information needed to make your blind landing areas look a little more comfortable. The #4 a 383yd Par 4 maintains the normal designed forced tee carry (150yd) and the elevated long and narrow green with a steep front, ready to reject anything short. The #5 is a slight 465yd LH dogleg that starts off with a 180yd forced carry, narrow fairway leading to a large elevated but protected round green. I played for a 80yd third shot to the #2/back position and enjoyed a easy 2 putt bogey. The #6 is their Hcp 1 hole and at 433yds offers nothing but trouble from any stray shots from the short grass. Fairway traps LH/RH side are well placed for tee and green approach shots with a par here being a reason for celebration. The #7 a 484yd Par 5/Hcp 9 offers that extra shot you needed on #5 & #6 so stay on the left side of fairway and Par is yours. The #8 is a long 203yd Par 3 with a big tree on the LH side so the draw works the best here for the long narrow green, running away from you. The finishing #9 a 417yd Par 4/Hcp3 offers nothing but trouble the last 100yds in so play that 2nd shot strong to the narrow (like #8) elevated green, to finish with a feeling of success. Without the cart GPS and my range finder, this course would be almost impossible to visually play and score low. Some of the fairway bunkers looked almost unfair to the average golfer for advancing any great length to score. I was lucky today and not hitting them today (fairway) but finding a couple of green-side ones that played very fair. Ended up shooting 40 w/16putts as staying in the fairway and knowing when to play for bogey, kept me from getting big scores.

$66 (cart included), played on Thursday, July 2014 at 10am

My experience with this course on 7-10-14 was less than favorable. Other than playing with three great guys, it was not much fun at all for reasons I'll explain below.

Full disclosure: I am 75 years old, have a 13.8 Index, and customarily score in the mid-80's from the senior tees (usually 5500 yards or so). This course has no senior tees. White tees are 5,919 yards. Slope and rating is 130 from the Whites is probably understated: IMHO it plays more like 140.

Course design is the basic problem. The terrain is quite hilly, so thre is lots of elevation change, which I usually consider a good thing. However, the execution is way over the top. First: the landing area on every hole except Par 3's, is not visible from the tee box until about hole #15. Some holes have fairly long forced carries, too. If you are unfamiliar with the course, drive forward and scope it out before hitting. Second: green approaches are banked/graded so that a ball landing short is kicked any direction but forward. Third: greens are HUGE, with much sculpting, and merely being on in regulation does not mean a simple par. The worst example is the multi-tiered green on #12, which is flat unfair for us mortals when the pin is on the top tier, which is a full 20 feet higher than, and 100+ feet laterally, from the front edge of the putting surface. Fourth, fairway bunkers (and there are a lot of them) are deep and not amenable to long-iron escape. Simply put, one wonders who this course was designed for?

Conditions were OK in fairways and on greens, which fortunately for us, were speedy, but not lightning fast. Bunkers were terrible: considering the number of them on the course (I think there are about 46 on the front nine alone), it must require a dedicated crew to maintain just that feature.

Staff that we met were friendly and made us feel welcome.

In summary: this course is only a few miles from several other layouts in the same price range (Whiskey Creek, Worthington Manor, Musket Ridge, Maryland National, and even the Frederick city muni, Clustered Spires) all of which offer a better golf experience, I think.

Now, lest you think all of this is just some crabby old geezer bitching about a lousy round, let me note that one of our group plays to a 2.4 Index, is club champion at his home course, and "escaped" with a hard-won 80 during our round yesterday. It's a very tough course, clearly not aimed at higher-handicappers, and certainly not senior-friendly.

You've been warned!! Good luck.

$46 (cart included), played on Tuesday, September 2009 at noon

$41 (cart not included), played on Sunday, February 2009 at 8am

Pace of play -- Saw the ranger 3 times on the front 9 but at no time on the back nine. We had to skip a hole to go around a rudely slow foursome. I love this layout. Our price was good because they had a Winter walking special for $43, otherwise at $64 it is overpriced for Winter conditions.

(cart included), played on Friday, September 2007 at 10am

I played this course during a golf outing on Sptember 21, 2007.

$126 (cart included), played on Saturday, September 2008 at 6am

Great layout very challenging but I always enjoyed playing here.