Magnolia Park Golf and Country Club

Our society visited here recently, first impressions are very favourable, the grounds around the clubhouse and the clubhouse its self are excellent. The patio area where we had our coffee & bacon roles were very nice, into the changing rooms again excellent standard with free locker use (£1.00 returned) are always a nice touch. Onto the 1st tee, no starter or marshal, so left to our own devices, although the car park was full, with a very nice selection of expensive cars the course didn’t seem busy, perhaps they were all hiding amongst the flower gardens and decorative arches that are scattered around the course.
A fairly average layout, plenty of dog legs with lots of bunkers rather lacking in sand, but at least they didn’t have silly high faces to get over even the green side ones were fair.
The greens themselves had some wonderful contours which made putting the art it should be, I thought they were rather slow, and took me far too many holes to anywhere near master them. In general they were a very good size, but leave the ball above the hole and you risked a three putt.
The tee boxes were pretty poor, numerous divot holes and rather uneven surface, signage was about average, meaning we didn’t get lost on some considerable walks from green to tees. Like a previous reporter, I could have easy have walked off when passing the clubhouse just before playing the finale three holes. Some good points, plenty of land for 18 holes, an off line shot wasn’t too severely punished and recovery back to the correct fairway often possible, the real rough was however quite severe and several players lost balls.
Onto the evening meal, the dinning room is large, we were the only group there, but for some strange reason were quite cramped around 4/5 tables at the furthest point from the kitchen area, this meant one poor waitress had struggle across a vast open area carrying two plates at a time!! The food was plentiful, but piled onto far too smaller plates, and the same girl had to struggle to clear the plates again two at a time, she must have walked a mile or more.
In the main, most of our group liked the course, I think more effort should be directed to “course” maintenance and away from the flower bed maintenance, how ever pretty it makes the place look.
One last comment, without a sat-nav device, I don’t know how people would find this place, certainly from the Aylesbury side of the M40. This course is ideal for society visits offering a good challenge for all level of handicaps, 38 points won our day from a big hitting fairly low handicapper.

played here on 9/6/08.
found the welcome dissapointing to say the least, with two of the receptionists more interested in cashing till up than welcoming me.
However the course was exceptional, magnificant interesting holes,the 2nd and 15th have water and are a real treat to play, all the other 16 holes look and play fantasticly well.
The greens were true and quick, perfect fairway condition,well kept sand bunkers and the views were fabulous.
Downsides.. wow very very few, some holes noisy due to being close to m40 and some i guess would find it a long course to walk.
All in all this has to be a course well worth going out of the way to play on, given the cheap green fees (£30) compared with courses near where i normally play( harpenden, redbourne).

Long, tough and maybe a little bland. Magnolia Park is a nice golf course but does not match the first impressions created by the impressive club house and grounds etc. I enjoy fast greens but i do expect that when i hit a solid 8 iron into a green it should hold on the putting surface. These greens were just too hard and the ball bounced through almost every time. The greens also had huge undulations which left some of the lesser players feeling a little out of their league. Played in a society day at £40 and felt that this was a little expensive.

Best course/club i've played on(as a guest).Can't wait for my next visit.

Played here last winter using a 2FORE1 voucher(£20 each).Nothing special here & a bit of a slog ,certainly not worth the standard green fee.Front 9 runs close to the M40 & electricity pylons.Quite a lot of walking between greens & tees & by the time we finished the 15th by the clubhouse we felt like going to the car park & missing out on the last 3 holes which go back out quite a way the other side of the clubhouse.Fairly good condition ,though.
K.B.

Heard good things, but ended up rather dissapointed,thought course was a bit bland

Played the course in July 2004 nice layout but greens and approaches were very poor, many greens had bare patches and approaches were just hard mud in some places. For what they charge I expected better.

Wonderful course. Very challenging. Staff are excellent. Greens and fairways are in tremendous shape.