Kern River Golf Course

Kern River Golf Course is an 18-hole public course on the northeast edge of Bakersfield, California, inside Kern River County Park, the 1,012-acre recreation area that also holds Hart Park, the California Living Museum and Lake Ming. The County of Kern owns it: the county’s Parks Division states that it owns and oversees the management of three golf courses, Buena Vista, North Kern and Kern River. Anyone can play, there is no membership requirement, and tee times are taken online through the booking platforms the course uses as well as by phone.

The setting is what most descriptions lead with. The course sits on hilly ground above the Kern River and Lake Ming, against the first rolling foothills of the southern Sierra Nevada, with the mouth of the Kern River Canyon behind it. Booking listings put it about 13 miles from downtown Bakersfield; the Visit Bakersfield directory says about fifteen minutes. For a city known for flat valley floor, oil fields and summer heat, it is one of the few local courses with real elevation change.

Who built it, and when

The history of the course is thinly documented, and the sources do not agree on its first year. A former Wikipedia article on the course, deleted in 2017 and now replaced by a short section in the article on Kern River County Park, gave 1953 as the opening year; we read that older text only in search excerpts of an archived copy. The ForeTee directory also gives 1953. GolfNow and the GolfN directory list 1951 as the year it was built, GolfLink gives 1950, and at least one listing says 1952. We found no newspaper report or county record of the opening, so the honest summary is that the course dates from the early 1950s.

The design is credited to the Bell family of Southern California architects, but not always in the same way. GolfN and the archived Wikipedia text name William F. Bell; ForeTee and several other directories credit William F. Bell and his father, William P. Bell, together; one listing names “William Bell Sr.” with Chet Foss. William P. Bell died in 1953, around the time the course opened, and his son carried on the practice, so a joint credit is plausible, but we found no plan or contemporary account that settles who drew which holes.

Lake Ming, the reservoir the course overlooks, came later. According to Wikipedia, the lake was created in 1959 by the Kern River County Park Dam and named after Kern County Supervisor Floyd Ming. The views of the water that golfers mention today were therefore added to a course that already existed.

The card

The figures most directories share are a par of 70 and a length of 6,458 yards from the back tees. The scorecard published on Greenskeeper.org gives three sets of tees: Blue, 6,458 yards, rating 70.7, slope 120; White, 6,258 yards, rating 69.6, slope 118; and Red, 5,971 yards, played as a par 73 for women, rating 73.5, slope 123. Wikipedia’s article on the park also gives 6,458 yards.

Other sources diverge. GolfNow, while repeating 6,458 yards in its summary, shows a tee chart with Blue at 6,435 yards (rating 70.5, slope 120), White at 6,245, Red at 5,342 and a Gold set at 5,242. The golf app 18Birdies lists Blue at 6,435 yards with a men’s rating of 70.4 and a slope of 123. These are probably more recent ratings after small changes to the tees, but no source dates its card, and we could not read the club’s own scorecard. The booking pages of GolfNow and Chronogolf still describe “a challenging 6200 yard championship course”, and Visit Bakersfield says 6,400 yards. The county’s own golf page, read in a search excerpt, calls it a par 72 of 6,458 yards; every scorecard we saw adds up to a par of 70 for men, so we treat the county’s par as a mistake or as a reference to a forward tee.

The Greenskeeper card shows how that par of 70 is built: five par 3s, ten par 4s and three par 5s. The front nine opens with a 529-yard par 5 and plays to 3,179 yards and par 35; the back nine plays to 3,279 yards and par 35. Two par 4s on the front nine, the 3rd at 465 yards and the 4th at 453, are listed as the two hardest holes on the men’s handicap stroke index together with the 14th, a 459-yard par 4. The 5th, at 293 yards, is the short par 4 of the round. For women, the 3rd, 14th and 17th become par 5, par 5 and par 4, which is where the par of 73 comes from.

What it asks of the golfer

On paper, 6,458 yards for a par 70 is not long. On the ground it plays longer than the number suggests, for three reasons that the card and the reviews point to together.

The first is the par 3s. There are five of them, and two are long: the 11th at 235 yards and the 17th at 222 yards from the Blue tees, with the 9th at 200. Golfers who post reviews keep returning to two uphill one-shotters over 200 yards on the back nine, one of them often into the wind; on the card, those can only be the 11th and the 17th. A mid-handicapper may need a fairway wood or a hybrid on both, and a short miss on an uphill hole runs back down the slope.

The second is the long par 4s. The 3rd, 4th and 14th all measure more than 450 yards from the back, and a par 4 of that length on a par 70 course behaves like a short par 5 for most players. Older reviews describe the 3rd as one of the hardest holes on the course, with trees on the right and an out-of-bounds fence down the left.

The third is the greens. Several reviewers describe small greens with two tiers, where finishing on the wrong level leaves a difficult two-putt; the Greenskeeper course page sums up that most greens have two tiers and that pin position matters. Reviewers disagree on speed: some call them fast, others medium or medium-slow. The 18Birdies community rates the greens as medium and the course as hard, which fits a layout where length on the par 3s and putting on tiered surfaces matter more than length off the tee.

The rest of the course is more forgiving. Reviews describe it as open enough off the tee in places, with doglegs, mature trees along many fairways and holes that play uphill and downhill across the slope. The 1st is described as a dogleg right par 5 best played from the left side of the fairway, the 2nd as a short downhill par 3 of 138 yards with a bunker that catches the shot left short, and the 18th as a 530-yard par 5 with a wide fairway that lets a player recover from a poor drive. The rough draws repeated comments: several reviews describe it as thick and sticky. Directories describe Bermuda grass fairways, and some reviews mention patches of poa annua and uneven lies in some seasons.

The climate is part of the challenge. Bakersfield summers are very hot, and reviewers who played in July mention the heat and worn tees. The course is listed as open all year, and the milder months are when most of the positive reports were written.

One hole: the 11th

If one hole sums up Kern River, it is the 11th. The Greenskeeper card lists it as a par 3 of 235 yards from the Blue tees, 225 from the White and 211 from the Red, and gives it the 4th handicap stroke for men, a rare ranking for a one-shot hole. It opens the back nine’s run of long holes, and its length is exactly what reviewers mean when they write about uphill par 3s over 200 yards that have to be played into the breeze.

For most players it is not a hole to attack. With a long club in hand, uphill, the realistic aim is the front or the fat part of the green, and a player who comes up short should expect a chip back up the slope. Several reviews also describe the green complexes here as tiered, so the pin position decides how hard the second putt will be. A bogey is not a disaster on a hole that the card itself treats as one of the hardest on the course.

The 17th, a 222-yard par 3, asks a similar question late in the round, and one older review describes it as tiring at that point. Players who keep a fairway wood or hybrid they trust for these two shots will find the back nine much easier to score on.

What golfers say

Kern River has many public reviews, spread over almost two decades on Greenskeeper.org, GolfPass and the 18Birdies and Hole19 apps. What follows sums up their recurring themes; nobody is named and nothing is counted. We read the GolfPass reviews only in search excerpts, because that site blocked our requests.

On the plus side. The setting comes first: reviewers like the parkland feel, the big trees, the elevation changes and the views of the Kern River, Lake Ming and the surrounding hills, which are unusual for Bakersfield. The variety of the layout is praised: short and long holes, uphill and downhill shots, doglegs and a few holes that reward shaping the ball. The greens are often described as rolling true and in good shape, and some recent reviews praise the bunkers for their soft, fluffy sand. The staff, in the pro shop and on the course, is described as welcoming and attentive. Many reviewers see it as good value for a public course and as one of the nicer courses in town, and the app ratings reflect that, with high marks for value and layout.

On the minus side. Pace of play is the most frequent complaint. Several reviewers report weekend rounds of more than five hours and waits on many tee shots, and some attribute the slowdowns to the five par 3s, where groups stack up. Conditions are described as uneven over the years: some reviews from particular seasons mention unmowed tees and fairways, dormant or patchy turf in winter, bumpy greens with unrepaired ball marks, and tees worn by summer heat. The rough is often called thick. Some players find the balance of the card odd, with long par 3s and a run of par 4s on the back nine, and one older review found the back nine repetitive. Others note a lack of yardage markers, some confusing walks between holes, and, in an older review, a closed snack bar.

In short, golfers who like an old-fashioned, hilly municipal course with character tend to rate it well, while those who expect resort conditions or a quick round on a weekend are the ones most often disappointed.

How to play it

Kern River is open to the public. Tee times can be booked through the course’s online booking engine on Chronogolf, through GolfNow, or by phoning the course at (661) 872-5128. The county lists the hours as dawn to dusk. Walking is allowed according to GolfNow and GolfN, golf carts and rental clubs are available, and metal spikes are not permitted. A GolfNow listing points to the course’s own rules and policies and mentions that collared shirts are required.

The practice facilities are more complete than at many county courses: directories list a grass driving range, a practice putting green and a chipping and bunker area. Golf instruction is offered on site; directories list a teaching professional and a golf school, without naming a current program we could confirm. We found no reliable, recent information about food service at the course, so plan for that before a summer round.

The practical advice from the reviews is consistent. Play early in summer, when the heat is lower and the course is less crowded. Expect a slower round on weekend mornings. Bring a long club you trust for the par 3s, aim for the correct tier of the green rather than the flag, and keep the ball on the fairway, since the rough is the most common penalty mentioned.

Getting there

The course is on Rudal Road next to Lake Ming, in Kern River County Park, northeast of central Bakersfield; the park is served by the Alfred Harrell Highway. Addresses vary between directories, which give Rudal Road with ZIP code 93306, Lake Ming Drive, or the intersection of Rudal Road and Lake Ming Drive, and street numbers differ too, so the safest way to navigate is to the course entrance off Rudal Road by Lake Ming. A bike path runs through Kern River County Park and ends at a large picnic area on the golf course property, but Wikipedia notes that it does not lead directly to the clubhouse.

Kern River County Park offers plenty to fill a day around a round: Lake Ming for boating and fishing, a campground near the lake, Hart Park and the California Living Museum, a small zoo devoted to the wildlife of the region.

How this page was made

This page is based on the County of Kern’s golf course page (read in search excerpts) for ownership, address, hours and the par 72 description; Wikipedia’s articles on Kern River County Park and Lake Ming, and Wikidata (item Q6394149, which gives a par of 70), for the location and history of the park and the lake; search excerpts of an archived copy of the deleted Wikipedia article on the course for the 1953 opening and the architect; the Greenskeeper.org scorecard and course pages, read on November 1, 2026, for the hole-by-hole card and the facilities; GolfNow, Chronogolf, GolfN, ForeTee, GolfLink, 18Birdies and the Visit Bakersfield directory for the tees, the year of construction, the design credit, the amenities and the booking; and the reviews on Greenskeeper.org, 18Birdies, Hole19 and GolfPass for the opinion section. The OpenStreetMap outline of the course gives the map position.

The course’s own website, kernrivergolf.com, which the county and the directories link to, refused our automated requests, so we could not read its scorecard, its rules or its description of the course. Where sources disagree, as they do on the opening year (1950, 1951, 1952 or 1953), the design credit, the length and ratings of each tee, the par given by the county, the distance from downtown and the street address, we say so above. We could not find a contemporary record of the opening, a list of renovations, or a confirmed name for the current golf professional, and we have not filled those gaps. The opinion section summarizes public reviews over many years; we report recurring themes, not individual voices. Nobody from Panxis has played or visited this course, and this page is no substitute for a round.

Kern River Golf Course and the County of Kern have not paid for this page, have not seen it before publication and have no say over its content. This page contains no commercial link and earns us no commission. If you know the course and something here is wrong or out of date, write to us and we will correct it.

Other courses nearby

Closest to this one in our United States directory:

• Bakersfield Country Club — 6 mi
• El Caballero Country Club — 91 mi
• Brookside Golf Club — 96 mi
• Bel-Air Country Club — 97 mi