The Meadow at Peabody Golf Course

[Hunyacka]

Peabody MA

I woke up early this morning after a string of 95+ degree days with high humidity itching to get out. It was a beautiful morning, low 70's with manageable humidity. I've played The Meadow last year a couple times and remember liking it, so I thought I'd head over there to walk a quick 9 before work. The green fees for 9 are only $23 bucks for nonresidents which is pretty good for this area.

The starter asked me if I wanted to start on the back 9 since noone was on it, so I said sure and walked on over. I forgot that the back 9 is actually significantly hillier than the front, but oh well, I need the exercise anyway.

So on hole #10, I drive my ball in the fairway about 100 yards from the green and walk to get my ball. As I'm walking down the fairway, I'm seeing a lot of brown grass both in the fairway and the rough. The rough was banged up overall with dirt patches and gravel. As I get closer to my ball and landing area I see hundreds of divots that haven't been filled or fixed. My ball happened to find some grass which was good, so I wedge up onto the green hoping for an improvement up there. I was relieved to see the greens were actually in really good shape. They were rolling very true with a medium speed to the them.

The rest of the 8 holes went very much the same way. The tee boxes and greens were in good shape, but the fairways and rough needed some attention. I never landed in a trap, but the sand in them looked pretty good.

The layout of the course is really nice. I loved the elevation changes and views from the top of some of the hills. If there was better maintenance, I'd have to say it would be tough to beat for the money.

Also a nice thing happened to me when I was walking up the 15^th hole when I ran into the ranger. I asked him if there was any water on any of the holes. Since it was so early he said he was currently putting them out. On the par 3 16^th green, he showed up with a freezing cold bottle of Poland Springs free of charge! I thought that was very nice of him and great customer service.

Overall impression including price, customer service, course condition, and layout, I'd give it an 8 out of 10. If they could improve upon the fairways and greens it would an easy 9 out of 10.

[gripz]

I played here today for the first and probably last time. Drove off after 13 holes and 4 hours with two groups in front of me on the 14th tee.

The layout is great. Lots of elevation changes, plenty of risk-reward shots if you can drive the ball well. There are a fair amount of blind shots, and you really need course knowledge to score well. My rangefinder battery dying after 5 holes didn't help. I played with 3 other guys who had played the course before, unfortunately, they were not great players, so they could only roughly describe how the holes might be played. I like to walk but under no circumstances would I consider walking this course. Too many elevation changes and there is a fair distance between some of the holes.

The greens were in excellent condition compared to your average public course. Fairways were above average. Overall, for the amount of play the course seems to get, I would say the conditioning is impressive.

Unfortunately, I just think the course is too difficult for the average player who tees it up there. The guy who shoots "around 100" is going to shoot about 120-130 on this course from the middle tees. There is no excuse for pace of play over 6 hours on a Friday morning, but they need the average hacker to pay the bills. So while I didn't see any rangers on the course, what are they going to do? Tell players who can't to hit a blind 220 yard carry in the fairway?

So, while I would love to play here again, I can't recommend it if you have any reservations about slow play. I can only imagine what a Saturday afternoon is like on this course.