Lets whine about crappy ranges

[Lemonhead]

I really miss the range that closed this winter. They always had decent tee boxes. Moved them daily and had enough locations to allow the grass to grow back before they reused the area.

Now the only range that stays open late, okay not even late - 8pm and they whine if you show up at 7:30. The grass areas are marked so that in the morning they allow an extra 1-2 feet of new "grass". I asked the guy and he said "If we move it back then people will move the ropes more". So the grass is all junk.

The balls are all old, worn-out junk.

Needless to say - they don't get my money anymore.

Lemonhead

[HighTopFade]

Sucks that Mission Bay Range in San Francisco closed. Nice facility with a restaurant/bar and a Golf Mart. Balls were expensive as hell though.

I go further down south to hit balls. Pretty nice facility but it lacks the restaurant/bar, and Golf Mart.

[jcostello88]

My local range is actually not bad. Currently all enclosed bays, but they'll be adding grassed bays early next season, I believe. I prefer going to my club practice range though - I've spent many summer evenings there alone hitting softly fading 4-irons at the sun.

[ezra76]

Range I go to is not bad. The balls are mostly Top-Flites and a few really beat up in every bucket. I should just throw the cracked ones out for them. I often bring 10-12 balls I find on the course in good shape with me to "donate". It's not the prettiest driving range around but at $20 for 5 large bucket tokens it's by far the best deal. They have heaters overhead for wintertime and a huge grass area to hit from, like 200 yds. wide and 100 deep. I like to go over there and hit short pitches across/back, then chip them all back into a pile, then tee them up with 3W and driver as well as iron shots. Nobody has complained so far so I'll keep doing it till they do.

The only thing I'd change is A) get rid of those cracked balls mixed in B) add a few more of the mounds and a general distance marker on them. Of course with the grass area so deep I can dial a 9iron into one and then just move 10yds. back every time to a 5iron.

[sandwedge]

Mine sucks but it is the only one nearby. The balls and the grass are decent but the short game facilities suck. They have a terrible chipping area that isn't always mowed and has snakes there. The bunker is in terrible shape. The putting green is small, has little slope to it, and made out of some kind of cheap turf.

[Poe4soul]

Instead of talking about what sucks let's discuss what we would love to see in a range.
Here's a few of my wishes:
Targets under 100 yards
Mirror somewhere on the driving range
Area on the range where you can practice sloped lies
Area with rough
Fairway trap at the range
Chipping/pitching for 50 yards and In
Sand trap

[Sandy]

The only bad thing about the range I use is the drive to get there, which can really clog up with NYC commuting traffic if I take the wrong route at the wrongs times.

95 all weather booths (with mats that simulate three different lies), 40 grass booths, regularly change mats and balls (all brand new balls last week!), enclosed and heated in winter, electric fans in the summer, nice pro-shop, nice cafe where my wife can get fresh sushi if she fancies taking the trip with me (range caters to LOTS of Japanese and Korean clients), practice bunkers and practice greens, decent rates, and best of all you get two tokens for the price of one before midday on weekdays!

While I was in North Carolina the other week I got to play a 'classic' range like I'd read about in plenty of books - beat-up trailer for the 'office', horrendous worn-through mats in the booths, the range itself didn't look like it had been mowed for weeks, hand-made yardage markers, a putting green that looked like the rough on some course, and a grass hitting area where EVERY lie was like hitting from off the fairway!

I had an absolute blast! For your money your bucket contained absolutely NO range balls and all lake/recovered balls of every make imaginable. I got to play balls by every manufacturer and plenty that I'd always wanted to try and see how they worked, like Nike One Golds and old Titleist Balatas (I saved them for my spin-milled Vokeys!), and was practicing all sorts of weird shots I would never normally get to hit in practice, like hitting out of divors or hitting punch shots out of rough. I'm missing it already!

[JEFF4i]

All the ranges around me are pretty good, so no complaints here.

[warbirdlover]

Ours all suck except the indoor domes. The outdoor ones have crappy, 40-year-old mats, balls that go about 1 yard to every 10 yards a normal ball goes. Always hitting into a 20 mph wind. And the yardages are all wrong. Talk about "milking" them dry for all their worth. The best ones are at the golf courses that have them.

[ualtim]

Not too many ranges in the Orlando area. Kind of surprising isn't it? I end up going to course ranges but you have to pay more for a bucket of balls. The two ranges I have found are not really close to where I live (more than 30 mins away) and are not the best ranges I ever been to.

The best range that is near to where I live is Falcon's Fire Golf Course. $10 for around 75 balls and plenty of flags and target areas to shoot at. They also have a nice practice bunker with green and a great putting green. The only better practice facility close by is The Nick Faldo Golf Institute, but they charge like $9 for a small bag of balls.

[dave.]

1 mile from my house;

decent mats
great putting and chipping green
good bunker
targets at 50 and 75 plus the longer targets
3 quid thats 6 dollars for 100 Srixons
very good

[lildudejds]

One of the public courses has a very nice practice facility.

HUGE hitting area, with an irons only section with very nice grass. like over 70 all grass tees, and a bunch of mats(nobody uses them though), practice bunkers, a big ole practice green.

The only downside is it is sometimes very crowded.

The prices for balls seem reasonable. 8 bucks for a large bucket which is like 120 balls. What do you guys normally pay for balls?


Another range i go to has a smaller area, and less grass tees, but it has all enclosed tees with heaters and such for when it's cold.

[Sandy]

Originally Posted by lildudejds

The prices for balls seem reasonable. 8 bucks for a large bucket which is like 120 balls. What do you guys normally pay for balls?

$6 for 70
$8 for 100
$10 for 130
$12 for 160

And yesterday I forgot they were doing the 2 for 1 deal when I went down, and accidentally bought 320 balls for $12. Today my hands hurt...

[DouginGA]

The university of georgia range is fantasic. no mats. well marked. BUT!! they charge by the minute!!! whether you practice puttting or driving you clock in and clock out. forgot what the charge is think about 10 an hour.

[King Par]

Our ranges are pretty good. I love the golf dome, 24 Dollars CDN an hour. Decent mats, excellent balls, cafe, mini-golf course, virtual golf and a golf shop.

The other one I go to recently got vandalized before I got there, so I can't judge it based on the last time.