Carmel Mountain Ranch Country Club

I played on Columbus Day and it was sloooooowwwww. Friendly staff nice practice greens. Weirdest looking irons practice area with netting and willy wonka contraption, it was hilarious. I got paired with a couple locals helped me navigate the course. Thanks guys! Houses left and right so keep your drives straight. How do you turn off that beeping sound when you work the scorecard/gps on the cart really irritating hahaha. Some par 4s play short so many try to drive the green which adds to the slow pace. Will be back but not on a holiday...

I played this course many times 10+ years ago, this was my first time back in a while. They've since remodeled, and changed the hole order (which was not only confusing, but somewhat convoluted). Some very long cart drives between holes (making walking this course an impossibility).
Fairways and tee boxes in pretty good shape after a long summer, greens were exceptional. Way too much hard dirt just off the fairways, though -- which doesn't make the course "demanding," but a bit silly. Miss a tight fairway by 5 yards and you're in dirt. Ugh.
I like the challenging setup, but some holes are rather contrived (like a 295-yard par 4 where you *cannot* drive the green, but MUST lay up to less than 150 yards). And the "driving range" into nets, while free, wasn't a very good warm-up.
Overall I enjoyed playing, and the actual course was in quite good shape, but I didn't feel as much "challenged" as I did on the old layout as I felt manipulated into no-choice shotmaking. At the price I paid ($33), I'd play again. At $65 or more, I probably wouldn't.

Had a very enjoyable round of golf ... staff was very friendly ... rented 2 sets of clubs and the staff gave us a dozen Taylormade golf balls and two golf towels .. clubs were Taylormade M1-- nice! Very enjoyable golf course, greens in great shape, challenging par 3's and some really good par 4's and 5's!! Great value too with GolfNow!! Thanks... we'll definitely return!

I played this course yesterday Sept.18th and was very excited to play but not for long. This course is a mess dry and not being kept up. Bunkers were hard as rocks and many of them you could see the plastic liner at the bottom of them. Being my first and last time I had no idea where to hit the ball. I do not remember one hole other than the par threes where you can see the green from the tee. Several holes I thought I had hit a perfect straight shot only to find my ball in the rough or worse in an unplayable lie. This course is not fun for me and my Handicap is 5 I can just imagine what it is like for a high handicapper. There are too many wonderful courses in the San Diego area for me to waste my time and money on a course that is only lacking some windmills and a clowns mouth to be called goofy golf.

I have played CMR golf club since it first opened. I played on Monday and was so surprised to see the condition. It was great. The greens were as fast and smooth as when the course opened decades ago. Well worth playing

Not a bad layout. Just funny stuff. Crummy golf carts. No tees, no coolers on cart. No snack cart on course. Tees hard as bricks could barely get tees in ground. Interesting layout but the odd things just make everything average

I love the course layout. Every hole is unique. The course conditions are slipping, and with playership down I'm not surprised. Some of the greens on the back nine were thin. It seemed that some of the greens were minimally sanded. I'm hoping the greens improve going into the fall. The bunkers are filled with dirt, but I could play from them. The fairways are good for the most part and the tees are in good shape.
I couldn't believe that more people were not on the course on Labor Day. It could be a symptom of golf's decline, but I suspect also that this course is too narrow and too penalizing for most mid to high handicappers. That said, playing on a holiday for $39 (plus golf now booking fee) was really nice. I'd be happy to play the course for $55 in its current condition provided that the place of play is good. Look for a round at mid day or early afternoon for a quicker round.
Note to the club: re-upholster the cushions of or trash the old white backed chairs that are outside the clubhouse. They look poor. In general, the grounds around the hitting nets and outside the clubhouse need sprucing.

Hole by hole the course is not bad and actually quite fun to play but the property need to impove the status of all the desert part of the course. I understand the management has decided to transform big part of the rough in desert but in order to make it playable also the desert part needs to be well maintained somehow! Also, the first nine holes are very close to the motorway and therefore quite noisy. Much more fun was playing the second nine both for the noise and the layout. Overall not bad and a quite good deal for a twilight rate of $35 after 2 PM but I don't think I'll go again, at least until they will do some proper car path which should avoid all the dust we got from the cart in front of us!

I grew up in SD and played this course several times when I was young. I lost interest in it years ago when I started hitting the ball harder and got increasingly nearvous about hitting a house. It's importantly to note that the homes are close to the edges of the fairways on several holes and many of those same holes have narrow fairways. That said, the $45 (plus small booking fee) rate for a Saturday morning round was too good to pass up. I played with my friend and one other person we met on the first tee. The pace of play was really good. We waited less than a minute a few times during the 18 hole round.
As for the course conditions, the greens were in good to great shape and rolled fairly true. The fairways were in good to great shape as well. The bunkers were consistent but they were filled with what seemed to be dirt. I agree with a previous reviewer that the bunkers should be improved. That said, I was able to play shots from them with considerable spin because the dirt is so gritty.
This was my first time playing the course since the turf reduction and takeover by JC golf management. The turf reduction has two upsides and one downside. The upsides are that it makes for a slightly more natural coastal desert feel and it means that the grass that remains can receive more water. The downside is that this tough course is less forgiving of wayward shots.

The course is not long even from the blue tees. I consistently hit 265 to 275 yards with my driver and I used driver on only 4 holes. I used several 3 woods and long irons off the tee. The important thing is to hit straight tee shots (200 to 230 yards in most cases) on this shotmaker's course.

My advice is to play this course if you are hitting the ball consistently straight and you can get a good deal. Provided that the pace of play is good, I'd be happy to play this course for as much as $65 on a weekend and $50 on a weekday. As an added bonus, the burger I had a the snack shop was good and plentiful. The par threes are truly challenging and the views from some holes give sweeping views of the surrounding hills covered with boulders.

Final thoughts: This course does not have a driving range but does have a hitting net with 10 or so stalls. The practice green is large and seemed to roll similarly to the greens on the course.

Course is in good shape. The tees are all nice and level with good grass. The greens have gotten fast and depending on where they locate the pins can be really tough. This is a desert style course so if you miss the fairways you will end up in the wastelands. Some of the holes are unique but that is what makes this course fun.

The course is in Great Shape, greens are rolling really fast. Love playing this course and the price was awesome. Can't wait to get back out here. Thank you CMR staff.

My only recommendation to the staff is better maintenance of the bunkers.

A few dry spots on the course, but it is summer in San Diego, CA. A little slow on the back nine.

I play this course quite a bit and think it has been in good shape since they refurbished it. However, the bunkers are a joke. We have not had rain in months so there should not be two inches of mud in your sand traps. Are you watering them? Maybe send a truck over to the beach and grab a bit of sand? Muddy wet or hard as a rock dirt bunkers don't allow you to play a true shot. OK, so I shouldn't be in them to begin with, but frustrating they were so bad yesterday.
The greens were a little fuzzy and not as fast as usual. Fairways were in awesome shape. Pace of play was a little slow, but manageable. For the price, this course is fun to play and the staff is always nice.

Nice course. Fairly short, but enough trouble to make it a challenge. Greens are great. Staff was friendly. Played in 4 hours.

This a course you cannot walk, the holes are far too far from each other. Some of the holes were pretty straight forward but most were up and down, with some gaps to play over, so the challenges were there. I will go back.