Tee Time: 12:52
Players: Jy, Youngsin, Youngsin’s friend
River Bend is a Robert Trent Jones Jr. designed course located in US Army Garrison Humphreys in Pyeongtaek, Korea. It is on the army base so you need base access to play this course.
It’s tough to book tee times during the weekend because military and retired military have priority over teachers (and I only know teachers who teach on the base).
But Youngsin’s friend is a retired US military guy so he booked a tee time and played with us.
It was a rainy morning and when we checked in at the pro shop, we were told that they don’t offer rain checks so if we pay and go out to play, it’s at our own risk. Being the risky guy that I am who likes to live on the edge…I had no problem with it.
Green fees vary greatly. For green fees including cart, it was $48 for my friend (teacher), $98 for me (US citizen guest), and $168 for Jy (non US citizen guest). For military it is even cheaper. For our military friend, he has an annual pass.
The course is nice. There is a lot of water and the quality of grass on the fairways and greens was good. One complaint I have heard is that there are no trees and that’s true so in the summer it can probably get really hot with no shade, etc.
Since it was raining, the course was not too crowded. We were able to take plenty of mulligans, etc. There were some singles out there as well as twosomes in addition to our foursome.
It is a relative flat course and not too challenging but fun. There is a good mix of bunkers, etc. There is a little bit of undulation but not much.
All in all, it’s a nice course and I would love to play it again sometime. Compared to The Lakes at Osan? I think The Lakes is prettier with more trees and water, etc. but I think River Bend has wider fairways and is easier to play overall so for a beginner like me, I prefer River Bend.