Riverbend Golf Complex

Start to finish... Booked Tee time online for an easy transaction. 👍 ~$26 military/twilight price. Pro shop personnel were friendly and patient (couldn't remember if I paid when I booked online but this was easily and quickly resolved with a 😊. Thank you for that 😁.) Putting green is right near the first tee box and earshot of the "next up" and "on deck" announcements. Also putts real close to what the greens felt like. Playing in late September. Beautiful day! The greens did seem to speed up a little bit when the sun started going down, which might have been my imagination. I'm still kind of new to this golf thing. All the tee boxes had fresh grass to hit from and were in good shape. The fairways felt tight in places and were definitely lined or guarded with trees which made missing the fairways a really fun challenge. Quite easy if you're good at squibbing the ball lol. You can get back in the fairway by getting under low branches or between trees but the course plays much easier staying in the fairway so I tried that for the back nine and dropped five strokes off of what I did on the front line lol. Most people walked which is good. I chose to drive just because I'm still working on getting my stamina up for a full 18. I did choose a cart which cost something like $18. There's a cart path throughout the entire course. There are definitely parts of it where the path is covering tree roots so it gets a little bumpy, watch those open beverages 😉. Pretty sure driving the cart on the fairway was permissible. I just chose to use 90⁰ cart rules bc I wasn't positive and the fairways were in really good shape. Even lies for very playable approach shots. Greens were easy to read. Nothing too tricky. Very puttable. Soft this time of year, end of September, which they may be all year. I don't know. This is my first time here. Approach shots were sticking very well. A bunker or two had standing water in it, but that's expected from all the rain we got recently. The rest of the course drained very well. The other golfers, I almost forgot about this but it should be worth noting, were very nice. I was solo and played with a married couple and another solo and it felt safe, like not judgmental or pretentious. You could also hear the roar of a couple guys playing a few holes away that were absolutely having a blast. Nothing like hearing someone belt out an exclamation and then you hear their ball doinking through the trees. Totally made us giggle while we were on one of the greens chasing the setting sun. But also heard others say "nice shot" for one of my hits. Have fun people! Learn to laugh more, especially at yourself when you have those moments available. 3:09 Tee time got us in on the 18th green with limited light around 7:20pm. We were getting pushed a little around 14 but everybody wanted to finish out their rounds and it was getting dark fast. If you're not a fan of being pushed or feeling pushed and you want to finish 18 before dark, I suggest not doing Twilight hours on a Saturday. If you don't mind not finishing a full 18, go for it. It was totally worth it. **Spoiler Alert** Okay and now the real surprise... the wildlife. See attached pics. Golf is such a beautiful sport in many aspects. Even the balance between being physically demanding but also trying to stay relaxed and out of your head is a delightful part of the experience and journey. But playing on a naturally beautiful course with wildlife present, is such an awe-inspiring treat. Golf courses are typically very bad for the environment (from destruction of habitat to chemical runoff etc etc) and catch a lot of shade from environmentalists, rightfully so in most cases, but check out the photos from Riverbend Golf Complex. You will see that this course seems to be in harmony with the environment. Obviously I didn't slow down play to do any water sample testing 🤓😂 but the overall feel was that you are one with Nature on this course. Oh and Mt Ranier 🌋!!! What a surprise 🫢!! Until next time-Peace out. ~Brookstorm