5601 East Longbow Pkwy. Mesa, Az. 85215
Today was a good day. I hit the best round of my life. Total score was an 85 on a par 71 course…..and I beat my dad by 1 stroke!!!!!!!! My dad is my golf idol and my goal is definitely not to have a lower score than my father. I just want to ‘hang’ with him when we play. He’s been playing for 66 years. He’s 71 now and can’t hit the ball as far as he used to but he’s pretty accurate. He normally hits in the low 80s for 18 holes and plays 3 days a week. Twice with a senior group (he’s retired) and once in his league. I would like to play more, but am happy if I can get out once a week and not bomb the course.
Longbow GC is located in East Mesa, Az. It is a very nice desert style course. We had a hot deal from www.golfnow.com for $18 at a 10am tee time. 2 other gentlemen played with us and I believe we all had a good round. Longbow has a choice of 4 tee boxes: Black at a total of 7050 yards, Green at 6513 yards, White at 5830 yards, and Red at 5202 Yards. There are also 2 combos: a Green/White at 6138 yards and a Red/White at 5469 yards. When I play with my dad, I play the tees that he does. We played from the whites. If I hadn’t have been with my dad, I would have played the green/white combo.
I dropped my clubs off at the bag drop and parked. Dad was already there. As you’re walking up from the parking lot, the clubhouse is on the left. The cart barn is on the right. There also is a range and a nice big putting green to use. Included on your cart is a free range book with your scorecard. This gives course yardages to the fairway sand traps, front/back of the greens, and tee yardages, etc. Longbow also has free bottled drinking water all over the course. There were 4 big coolers with dozens of 16oz bottles in ice on the course. At the 2 restrooms on the course, there are drinking fountains that have a filtered water dispenser. Right by the range and putting green there is also-what looks like an old time ice cream push cart- that has ice and bottled water, too.
I can’t think of a course where you start out with a par 5. There is a lot of desert you can land in to the left (I did) from the tee, but it’s easy to get out of. The Hole 5 fairway runs along the right side of the fairway. I have to comment that all of the fairways are wide open. Longbow is a very playable course. Playable in that if you have a bad shot, it’s not hard to recover from. There are a lot of bunkers, but they aren’t that deep and easy to play around. There is one large pond on the course and it does come into play on the #4 and #6 holes. Most of the holes on Longbow are relatively straight. However, #1, #4, #10, #12, and #18 are all doglegs and you can’t see the green from any of the tees. This was fun to play position golf on. Some of the greens were wavy and some were relatively flat with a bit of a break. I enjoyed putting on all 18 greens. They weren’t too hard, but they weren’t flat, either. A side note: what nice is that there was no one in front of us or behind us during the front 9. The back 9 was a different story. Longbow currently has a 9 hole special for $15 and all of those taking advantage of this special must tee off on the back 9. Luckily, we never waited on anyone and we let one single play through.
We played our round in 4 hours. That’s normal for a foursome. Longbow is a very nice facility. The tees, fairways, and greens were in exceptional shape, given the hot summer in the Phoenix Metro Valley. I did not eat at the grille, so I can’t comment on the food. The drink cart girl passed us 3 times. With so much free water available We didn’t really need anything. I finally bought a Powerade because she looked bored. All in all, a 5 star course and facility. I look forward to playing here again. But…so many courses, so little time!
Longbow Golf Club played 22 July 2018.
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