Actually, it makes sense when you think about it.  We all know how psychologically demanding golf can be…where one bad shot can seem like the end of the world.  And recent studies have shown how lack of sleep can affect our judgment, motor skills, and temperament.  What I find interesting about the study is that it shows just how mental golf can be.  Often, improving your strategy and keeping your emotions in check can yield better results than time spent at the driving range.

Here is the full WebMD story:  Sleep Apnea Treatment Helps Your Golf Game

There are many things to like about The Foothills.  The customer service is great, the course is always in great condition and quite challenging, and for $30 it’s a ridiculous deal.

First, the customer service: I like to break down golf course customer service into two categories, the basics and the intangibles.  The basics include things like the friendliness and helpfulness of the receptionists, starters, beverage girls, and cart valet/receiver guys.  A round of golf should be a relaxing experience and the friendliness of the employees go along way in making this happen.  I have enough to scream and shout about on the golf course — rude customer service shouldn’t one of them.   The Foothills employees are very friendly, unassuming, and helpful.  On Saturday, for example, my golf partner happened to be running late and I wanted to hit a few balls from the range before our round.  Instead of waiting for him or driving back to the cart area to pick him up, the valet guys offered to drive him down to the starter tee when he arrived.  Needless to say, he paid for the first round of beers!   The starter was also very friendly and understanding.  The beverage girl was charming.  Overall, quality marks for the entire staff.  As I mentioned earlier, customer service is as much about the intangibles as the more obvious factors.  These include minute details such as providing tees as part of your cart, having your clubs loaded and cart ready before you come out of the clubhouse, cleaning your clubs at the end of your round, sharing tips about how the course is playing, etc.  Certainly, private or higher end courses excel in this area, but for the value The Foothills does a tremendous job.  Customer Service: B+

Course conditions and difficulty: These two are generally reviewed separately, but for simplicity sake I will review them together.  For course conditions, I’m always less concerned with face-value aesthetics, such as pretty bunker patterns, lush green fairways, and prefer to review the things that impact your score, such as fairway saturation conditions, receptiveness of the greens, consistency of the bunkers, etc.  In other words, the blonde with fake breasts is less important than the cute girl that’s funny, witty, and raises your game.   The Foothills scores relatively well in this department.  I found the greens to be very receptive and consistent.  The bunkers, unfortunately, were not as well kept.  While some of the bunkers were very clean and true, I found a few that were hard and lumpy, as if it had just rained.  The fairways were in great condition and reward accurate shots off the tee.  As in most desert style courses, most of the fairways are sandwiched by desert on both sides instead of deep rough.  This makes poor tee shots “interesting”.

In general, the course is not terribly difficult.  As I mentioned above, the fairways demand accuracy off the tee, but the course is not too long.  We played from the tips and most par 5s seemed reachable in two….”seemed” being the key word, of course.  The greens are a bit challenging.  While most have hazards guarding the pins, I found you could play it safe and still leave yourself with a makeable putt.  One thing missing was water hazard greens, and I would have liked to see more holes with tucked-away pin positions guarded by hazards and sloped greens.  Still, three or four of the greens are guarded heavily by bunkers on all sides and make careful approaches necessary.  Overall, I was pleased with the difficulty for my level, but I could see this course being a nice challenge for aggressive single-digit handicappers.  Course conditions and difficulty: B-

Value: At $30, good luck finding a nicer course with the level of service found at The Foothills.  I would definitely recommend this course to anybody!  Value: A

-jg