Seaview, Galloway, NJ

I can't say enough good things about this course. Being an older, and shorter course than many of the new ones I'm used to playing, I was skeptical about how challenging it would be. I'm a 9.7 handicap and ended up shooting an 84 from the tips and the course was plenty tough enough. The greens are some of the nicest I've played at a public course, and rolled just as true as many of the private clubs I've played in NY. Because it's an older course, the layout is really traditional - a lot of doglegs and narrow fairways, no gimmicks, just old fashioned golf. Each hole was memorable and the course kept my attention the entire time. Holes 16 and 17 are two of the toughest par 3's I've ever played - 16 playing 250 from the back tees with the wind in our face and 17 playing 215 with wind.

Most importantly, the pace of play, and staff, were terrific. They were competent, pleasant, ran a tight ship and were constantly patrolling the course to keep up pace of play. We were a twosome and on three or four occasions, one of the Troon employees drove up to us on the golf course to tell us that they had spoken the foursome in front of us and that they were going to let us play through on the next hole. We played a three hour round on a pretty crowded morning because of this.

One of the best public golf experiences I've had, we'll definitely be coming back to play again.