Heartwell Golf Course – Par 3 (Long Beach)

6700 East Carson Street
Long Beach, CA 90808
(562) 421-88556

18 holes (par 54)
Yardage: 2,143 yards
Hours: Sunrise to 8pm
Green fees: $16, $18 on weekends and holidays

Heartwell is a 18 hole par 3 golf course located in the North East edge of Long Beach. It is close to the 405, 91 and 605 freeways. The course is fully lighted allowing play in the dark winter evenings. There is a full practice facility at the location, with the driving range having 35 stalls. There are also practice putting and chipping greens. Heartwell is known as the course where Tiger Woods got started in the game. Four months shy of his fifth birthday Tiger got his first birdie and it was at the 91 yard, third hole at Heartwell.

I went super early in order to zip around the course. So that I could get back home and take my significant other to IHOP for some German pancakes. However that didn’t work out so well. This course is busy and I mean really busy. I started straight away and by the time I got to the 2nd hole I had to wait a few minutes at every hole for the rest of the round. Now I teed off at 6.35am and it was not really fully daylight. When I finished my round (9am ish), which took about 2 hours 20 minutes the parking lot was almost full. As I finished the last few holes and looked around I saw people all over the course playing. I was relieved I played so early and would hate to play 9am or later. For me the popularity of this course is a negative and it is reflected in my overall mark for the course.

I was a little underwhelmed by the front nine holes. They all seemed a little generic and all at the same yardage range. The back nine was a great improvement. The holes were designed with more variation and the yardages varied.Almost all of the holes (if not all) had a greenside bunker. There was a little water on the course which came into play on hole 14 and 18. One of the most enjoyable holes was hole 12. It is only 85 yards, but has a deep bunker at the front of the green and a small green; so you have little room to work with. In fact the best stretch of the course for me were holes 11 to 14. They were short, but as often the case the short holes are the most fun to play.

I did notice an error on the scorecard. Hole 8 is down at 140 yards. But in reality it is about 115-120 yards.

The course was relatively easy to play. The longest hole is 140 yards, so you only need to bring a wedge, putter and a couple of short irons with you. I brought just four clubs and did just fine. Many of the holes were straight with little danger. Therefore making it a good choice for beginners to play. Where there was water, the shot to play over it was short – may be 70 yards. You do not have to hit 180 yard shots over water like at Manhattan Beach! I did find it a little tricky at times to navigate the first few holes of the golf course. The holes were not clearly marked and some had no tee markers at all – especially on the front nine. The tee markers were small stones and not all that large. Some were covered by nearby foliage. There were some ball washers out at the tee boxes, but not on every hole.

The course was in really nice condition for a public course. The grass was well watered and you hit off regular tee boxes – not mats. The greens were of good size, although it did seem as the round went on the greens got smaller. The greens were soft and did not run all that fast. Which I liked and made a nice change as with the heat recently greens have been running ridiculously fast. I did notice however that a lot of the greens had pitch marks which were not repaired. The maintenance guys were out working on the course and waited while you played the hole, letting the game flow. They did not storm onto the green while I was in the middle of playing it. Take note Norwalk and El Segundo!

They do have golf carts available to rent which is rare for a par 3 course. This makes Heartwell good for seniors or those with walking difficulties.

Richie says… “Too busy! If I played here again, I would probably just play the back nine. Those holes were much more fun and interesting than the front nine. Nice short course but the popularity of it, is its downfall.”