McCullough’s Emerald Golf Links

Staff at the bar rude and inattentive.
Course has potential. But this old crotchety nasty ranger on site, allowing his friends to play a five some. And hold up everyone behind them. They were drunken losers hitting 5 balls a person off each tee. And the ranger said nothing to them since he was obviously their friend
Meanwhile he repeated hawked us on every hole to make sure we were driving on the proper parts of the course. So wacky to look over as your putting and see this idiot just waiting to give you advice. Rude as ever. Why this course would employ people like this is unknown. Ranger Jim is his name.
When I mentioned to management they could not care less. They get money either way I guess. I will not be back.

My son and I played or tried to play this course on on annual golf weekend. We struggles to get to the 11^th hole in a little more than 4 hours. When talking to a ranger I was told there was an outing ahead of us that was not very good and insisted on looking for their balls which took up to 30 minutes. I heard a Ranger on a Wilkie talkie ask if he should make them skip a hole and the office tell him to let them be. When my son and finally gave up and I went to the office to complain they told me the would not refund any of greens fee and gave me a $ 5 discount for our next round. I discarded it and will not play there again.

I am really glad I didn’t read the reviews prior to booking my round at McCullough ’ s
I really enjoyed my round at this course.
The course is based on mirroring holes from famous courses in the uk/​Europe
I had no issues with any of the staff, I felt they were very welcoming
The conditions were excellent
I was hooked up with 2 nice gentlemen
Who had played the course before.
The course does not have a range
There is a putting green available
There is a café/​restaurant
My only disappointment was pace of play on the back nine
We played the front in 90 minutes
The back took over 180 minutes because we were behind some elderly players.
Give it a shot if you can play on golf now for less than $ 50 with a cart

Remember this is a muni, wish I had something equivalent at home
It can be a lot of fun and there are some great holes where you can play all sorts of shots
I usually go out very late and play practice rounds
They keep it in pretty good shape for a muni
The holes across the road are pretty lame and I often skip them as the final two holes are great replicas

Extremely dissapointed in this course and will go out of my way to never golf here again! Besides the lady in the club house and the girl in the food cart (who immediately distanced her self by telling us she doesn’t work for the course and sees this stuff all the time) everyone who works here is extremely rude! They have about 15 marshalls on the course and they act like the Nazi army. The marshalls frequently drive into the fairway while you are trying to hit and yell at you like you are a child. We got yelled at 3 times for «not moving quick enough» when we were standing at tee boxes waiting for the group ahead of us for about 9 holes and the 3 some behind us were never hitting into us or waiting at the tee boxes. We were a four some who finished 18 holes in 4 hours so our speed was far from a problem. They tried getting us to skip holes but after a long argument we won the battle but the Marshall war sure never ended the whole day. Even the cart guy after we were done playing was using foul language and was extremely rude. I have been playing golf for 15 years now and never seen anything like this. The course was long and fun to play even though you felt like you were playing a desert and most of the cart paths feel like you are off roading. I would recommend this course for 35 bucks and for people who liked to be watched and hassled but for 76 dollars I would stay far away. There are plenty other courses in AC that deserve your business!!!

Golf slavery! These rangers on this course shouldn’t be called «rangers» they should be called «slave drivers.» It’s true. Replace their golf carts with horses and their visors with ten gallon hats, and that’s what they’d be. As a man of color I was fully expecting them to whip me and shout out «let’s go now boy» or «you ain’t from round here are ya boy.» They were surrounding us. Two or three at a time. Screaming at us to hurry up. I felt as though the chains were on me, as my ancestors did. I”ll never go back.

Pleasantly surprised with this course. Played there early on a weekday. For 30 or 40 bucks this course is definitely worth a play but I wouldn’t pay much more. It was in very nice shape. The layout is pretty bizarre. Anyone looking into this course knows the holes are based on famous holes in the uk. This leads to some pretty unusual links style holes and plenty of blind shots, if you’re playing here the first time you can be easily confused. Overall pretty cool course.

Similar to another user, I had the exact same experience with a group of three foursomes for a bachelor party. I have been playing golf for 10 years and have played many different courses, this experience was the worst.
We arrived at the course and spent about $ 200.00 in food for lunch. 12 guys ate lunch and had a few pitchers of beer. When we all gathered to start at our starting time, we were then greeted by the manager Tom who went on to give us the rules of the course. He condescendingly told us that the course is all about pace of play and if you were not playing bogey golf to pick up your ball. So, after spending $ 200 at the clubhouse in food, this is how they decided to treat their customers right from the start.
On the 5^th hold, a ranger came and told us that we were behind schedule and that we needed to hurry our play or he would make us skip a hole. This that said, there was no group in sight in front, or behind us, and we were right on pace at 4.5 hours for a round. We politely said fine, and let it go.
Then at the 9^th hold, the ranger returned to make us skip a hole, and at this point there was still no group in front of behind us. Of course, as we skipped to the next hole there was a group teeing off on our whole backing which meant we had to wait. At this point, we expressed our extreme displeasure to the ranger and he unapologetically tried to justify moving our group made sense when in fact it was completely nonsensical. The ranger proceeded to follow us on most of the holes, creating a distraction and taking away from a special day.
After the round, a verbal argument ensued with their staff and our group and a staff member actually asked one of our members if we wanted to fight them. We decided to take the higher ground and take our losses.
To sum this up, this course (which by the way was created on top of a land dump) is badly designed and their staff are all completely unprofessional, inexperienced, crooks and morons.
PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE DO NOT GIVE THESE CROOKS YOUR MONEY!

The course layout wasn’t bad, fairly challenging in some places and good variety. Conditions were good overall, although a few holes could use some maintenance (15 and 16 come to mind). That being said, the staff here, particularly one of the course marshals, were the rudest and most unprofessional I have ever encountered at a golf course at any price. We had 8 guys for a bachelor party, divided into 2 foursomes. By the fourth hole, the marshal began rudely hounding us about our pace of play, saying that we were on track for a 5 hour round (PoP is 4.5 hours) and we needed to hurry up or we would have to skip a hole. He then proceeded to follow us around and watch us for the rest of the front 9. We explained that there was another group in front of us that held us up significantly but that didn’t seem to matter. When we got to the turn, the first foursome in our group ran into the club house to quickly buy food and when they came out, the marshal told them they had to skip 10 even though my foursome was behind them and the next group was 2 holes back so we weren’t holding anyone up. A heated argument followed which ended with the marshal telling them they could either skip 10 or go inside to talk to the manager and waste even more time and probably have to skip 2 holes. After some more argument, they grudgingly skipped the hole. For a place that charges $ 70 to play a round on a mediocre course, that kind of treatment is completely unacceptable. Next time I’m in the AC area, I will be looking for a different place to play.

Played here on 8÷3÷13 as part of three threesomes. Course has an interesting layout with several challenging holes. Given the course condition, I don’t think it’s worth $ 81 to play. Will look at other options in the AC area when I’m there next. Good beverage cart service.

Very solid course and great value for the area. No problem making a tee time. Golf, pro shop and restaurant staff was very courteous throughout. Course itself was very interesting links style. Fescue was tough if you found it, but the course was very playable with an interesting layout. Would definitely be easier the 2^nd time you play but nothing was unfair. 7^th, 15^th and 16^th holes were all gems and especially memorable. Price is fair and lower than some other courses in the area. Only knock on the course is that there is no driving range, but the putting/​chipping green has space so you can make some 50 – 60 yard shots if no one else is on the green. All told it was a very enjoyable track and worth the visit for a different style course, particularly if you are familiar with some of the historic courses that the McCullough’s holes are patterned after.

Didn’t care for this course. Not a nice layout. Needs work.

Emerald Golf Links is the ultimate Jekyll and Hyde golf course, and in the end it’s not worth the prices they charge. I was able to play this course because of a 2-​for-​1 coupon that came with my vacation house rental. So, myself and 3 others were able to play for $ 35 each instead of the normal $ 70 rate for Monday, 9:30 tee-​time. There were numerous times when we said to each other «Man, I would be mad if I paid $ 70 for this.»
The first 5 holes were immaculate and beautiful. The concept of the course, replicating famous European holes, is wonderful and you feel like you’re playing in Scotland or England. However after the first 5 holes, the course slowly because to deteriorate. Tee boxes got worse, the fairways were ripped up, and the greens were patchy with some dead grass. This deterioration culminated with holes 15 and 16 which were on the other side of a busy road with limited visibility while crossing. These holes were absolutely atrocious, it’s almost like nobody cared to maintain them since they were across the street. After those, 17 and 18 were once again beautiful. It certainly seemed like only a few holes got the love and attention they all should have.
Another negative is that instead of having automatic sprinklers, the course staff was out during the day watering greens. The problem is, these guys didn’t care if you were ready to hit onto the green, they just stood there watering the green until they were done. One worker did walk to the side of the green but kept the hose on and absolutely soaked one little spot of green where he was standing.
All in all, if you have to pay full price to golf here, I would pass. But for the $ 35 that we paid to play, we were happy with the golf we got to play.