Tag: FLORIDA

Into the Wilds at Grande Lakes Orlando

Into the Wilds at Grande Lakes Orlando

At first glance it might look like Team Norman mailed this one in. There doesn’t appear to be much to the course, especially against the backdrop of the property’s two overlord hotels, a Ritz-Carlton and J.W. Marriott. Granted, Norman didn’t have great material to work with — essentially a flat, soggy wetland preserve in south Orlando’s Shingle Creek…

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The “Rees-ification” of LPGA International

The “Rees-ification” of LPGA International

The Champions Course at LPGA International is Rees Jones in all his stereotypical glory with repeated perimeter bubble humps and cartoonish bunkers. The uniformly round and oval greens look like they were designed by computers programmed to calculate perfectly spaced 1 through 5 pin positions separated by linear shelves and tiers. The entire site is flat and rotten with…

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Julington Creek Serves No Surprises

Julington Creek Serves No Surprises

Julington Creek Golf Club is the kind of course that’s hard to say much of anything about, good, bad or indifferent. Well, maybe indifferent. It’s basic, competent Jacksonville golf, which is to say it’s flat, roams enormously through a development, features a good bit of water and a few wetland crossings, and has little unique character.…

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A Time to Focus — Smyers’ Southern Dunes

A Time to Focus — Smyers’ Southern Dunes

On one hand it’s easy to recommend Southern Dunes because, between the ropes, it’s a Central Florida original. Steve Smyers’ design has much going for it — great raw material sitting atop a deep sand ridge, gliding elevations, distinctive bunkering that creates distance illusions and alternate angles of play, putting surface contour with knobs, slopes and other…

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Solid and Scenic: Amelia Island Plantation’s Oak Marsh

Solid and Scenic: Amelia Island Plantation’s Oak Marsh

Compared to Ocean Links, Amelia Island Plantation’s other (now deceased) resort course, Oak Marsh is both more solid and less interesting. The holes follow a standard real estate development configuration, playing through wooded condos on the inland side of Highway A1A along the Amelia River and Intracoastal Waterway. Each nine starts slow, flowing in counterclockwise and clockwise rotations on either side…

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The Highs and Lows of Sanctuary Ridge

The Highs and Lows of Sanctuary Ridge

Any course that claims to be Florida’s “mountain course” cannot be taken seriously. This is a state that considers a mountain anything that’s higher than the roof of your house. However. Sanctuary Ridge, located at the north end of Lake Wales Ridge near Clermont, is in fact situated on some of the state’s most vertiginous real estate. The…

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