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 intricate little details and a good back-story (one of the original investors is professional poker player Dewey Tomko, so you can imagine some of the side bets that have taken place here).

On the other hand I have to work a little harder to justify its rating because the surrounding housing development nearly sucks the life out of everything good.

It’s hard to overlook, say, the second hole, an otherwise terrific short par-4 where the backyards and enclosed pools are so close you can sometimes hear televisions and telephones ringing. What I emphasize is that as the round progresses, you tune it all out because the course demands so much of your attention.

Even though the fairways are expansive you soon realize this is not a typical swat-and-go course — you need to figure out what line to play and usually what club to use.

There’s a great Bottle hole at the 5th where you decide on either high or low fairway paths separated by a string of bunkers. A big Augusta-like roping hook is needed to get down the hill to the garden spot at Southern Dunes’ own long par-4 10^th. And how you choose to take on the wide fescue-clotted bunker complex on the inside corner of the short par-4 15^th will determine whether this is a birdie or bogey hole.

The bold, curvaceous bunkering may seem obvious but little bits of subtlety lurk in the shaping details, and moments of treachery recur, like missing the green anywhere on the downhill Volcano par-3 11^th. Or drawing a downhill lie when hitting pitches into the tiny plateau green at the 9th. Or finding one’s ball on the wrong level of the tri-tiered 16^th green. Or being above the hole at the 17^th.

These kinds of situations here demand outstanding mental and physical acuity, which you’ll need to overlook the lamentable ambiance. (90)

Southern Dunes Golf & Country Club

Haines City/Orlando

Architect: Steve Smyers

Year: 1993