Richmond Park Golf Club Dukes Course

My initial impressions of this course were formed when I went to pay my green fee in the pro shop and innocently asked which of the two courses was the better. The chap behind the counter barked "Dukes" and clearly had no time to engage in any chit chat. I had arrived early to meet my friend and had a half hour to kill so decided to have a warm up on the range. The mats were battered and shabby and loads of the balls were split. No worries I thought and just smacked a basketful up the designated slope.

My friend arrived and we headed off for the first tee in good spirits. The winter tee mats were totally worn out. They were actually like carpets casually rolled over very wonky paving slabs with nowhere to push tee pegs into. We carried on determined to have a good game. After playing two holes on the saturated and heavily puddled fairways we spent 10 minutes looking for the third tee. Sign posts do not exist here.

On heading for the fourth we stumbled upon a tea shack where my friend decided we should have a bacon butty. The girl behind the counter was on the phone throughout the transaction shouting in at her victim. When I asked for butter on my bread she seemed agitated and barked "we don't do butter!" End of chat.

The greens were unplayable due to recent heavy rain, the fairways were soaked and lake sized puddles appeared everywhere. The management cannot be blamed for recent downpours but if they cared about the course they needed to close it to prevent damage. I will never use this facility again. In a nutshell, staff were incredibly rude, tees were worn out, greens were terrible, fairways like lakes (no drainage?), and a struggle to find some of the tees. The whole place appears to be run by non golfers or people that couldn't care less whether you have a decent experience.