Blue Top Ridge At Riverside

Very high quality all around. Tight course at times and you will be challenged. Excellent manicured fairways and greens. My only criticism is one green did have a ton of debris from a tree nearby, but the wind was blowing toward the green. Hope they remove that tree after a few smaller trees grow larger.

My two favorite hobbies, golf and casinos. Here, it’s wrapped into one! This is my take:
Clubhouse: To be honest, it was a pain in the butt to find the pro shop here. I don’t know if I missed a sign or whatnot, but I ended up having to walk across the hotel with my bag, just to find the pro shop. Once there though, very nice. One of the nicer pro shops I have been in. I would say large in size with a lot of merchandise to purchase should you need. Staff was friendly and helpful. Price was a little high ($ 80 + tax), but given the options in a 50mi radius, they are one of the top two courses, so they can get away with charging a little more.
Driving Range: Real nice. Located right next to the first tee, but going opposite direction from it. No holes nearby it so no worries about hitting into people golfing the course. Plenty of room for golfers to hit, teaching area for the pro to use, well laid out. Practice range balls are included with the price.
Putting green: Nice. Nothing spectacular or very memorable. Just fast and pretty much true to form of what the course showed.
Course: My first impressions of the course were excitement. I knew this place was going to be nice. They did not disappoint. Lots of elevation changes with some undulation on the fairways. It made for a nice challenge. Couple of par 5’s stick out in my mind. #12 is a 550+yd par 5 with a huge fairway to hit into off the drive, but gets smaller and smaller as you get closer to the green. If that wasn’t challenging enough, the hole was seriously 100+yds above the tee box. Every inch of that hole is played uphill! It played more like a 650yd par 5, than 550. The next memorable hole was #16. We were told by the starter at the beginning of the round that it was the longest hole in the state of Iowa. Yep, its long. 665yds long! First 300yds downhill, last 365yds back up hill. Really nice looking hole though. I would say it’s their signature hole. Course was kept in excellent condition. Greens rolled true, fairways and tee boxes were being kept in shape by maintenance guys that we saw filling in divots with seed.
Staff: Everyone we came across was very nice and pleasant to talk with. Starter, ranger, bag attendants, maintenance, etc. Everyone was polite!
Food: We didn’t eat at the course as we had a huge dinner in store for us at Augusta Restaurant in Oxford, IA that afternoon (feel free to check out my reviews of that place too!) I did eat in the Casino the night before and the food I had was quite good. Reasonably priced too!
Overall: Again, one of the best courses in the Iowa City area. Only one that I think is close is Amana Colonies, but honestly, they are two different style courses. Given that this one has a casino attached to it, I would be more inclined to play here, but you can’t go wrong with either. I also think with the amount of staff present on the course, they get a slight nod. I will definitely be back for another round!