Here are Three Worthy Florida Golf Venues to Check Out
Here are some golf options for visitors to the 2018 PGA Merchandise Show in Orlando, ranging from the closest course to the event to an underrated steal to a deserving location a day’s drive away.
Shingle Creek Golf Club
The nearest golf course is the Rosen Shingle Creek Golf Club, less than two miles from the The large-scale venue for the show is the Orange County Convention Center.
The Arnold Palmer Design Co. redesigned Shingle Creek a little over a year ago. with a reduction in bunker sizes, a lengthening of par 4s and 5s and improved sight lines. The placement of bunkers still affects which club is required off the tee, despite the fact that their size has been reduced.
The redesigned greens at Shingle Creek are especially notable because they are enormous, measuring between 3,500 and 9,500 square feet.
This is what Thad Layton, head of the Palmer design team, said about them:
“Bold greens with personality: This course will be distinguished by a wide range of green sizes and shapes with a fair amount of contour. When the ball is off the green, there are ALWAYS multiple ways to bring it in close. With fairway mow-outs surrounding the greens, the various slopes in and around the greens will encourage innovative recovery strategies.”
During a game last year at the PGA Show, we discovered that to be accurate. In spite of the fact that you might be facing a 40-yard pitch from a position 10 yards off the green, 30 of those yards will be on a green that is so wildly undulating and has two or even three severe breaks that a pitch and run is not the best course of action.. Layton is implying that getting close might require a high shot over the breaks.
It is sufficient to say that you will struggle to two-putt if you are putting from beyond 30 feet.
In addition to a cart with a GPS, range balls, and free valet parking, green fees for the week of the show range from $119 to $149.
A Bargain on Orlando’s Outskirts
Rio Pinar Golf Course
It was refreshing to see an Alabama golf writer I know and his longtime pro friend from Florence, Alabama, as so much of Orlando is so new, so cookie-cutter, and trending to high end., found A relic from a previous era is Rio Pinar Golf Club.
Rio Pinar has the atmosphere of a 1950s-era old-style country club and is located 22 miles (or roughly 30 minutes) from the PGA Show in the northeastern corner of the Orlando Metropolitan Area. The Citrus Open once took place on the course, which debuted in 1957. Arnold Palmer, Julius Boros, Lee Trevino, Hale Irwin, and Jerry Heard were among the PGA Tour stars who participated there.
Rio Pinar is a course that winds through homes from the same era and has enough mature trees and water on it that missing the fairway requires some shot-making. When I played Rio Pinar in 2017, it was an unpretentious delight with plenty of shade to combat the Florida heat.
Your wallet will have no trouble with its $40 greens fee for 2018 and I would definitely go back if the staff were more hospitable.
A long Drive but Worth It
The PGA Village in Port St. Lucie is located about two hours south on the Florida Turnpike. A nearby property, St. Lucie, where the three renowned golf courses, the Dye, Wanamaker, and Ryder courses, have joined forces. Today, PGA Village is in charge of running Lucie Trail Golf Club.
PGA Village is a multi-course facility run by the PGA of America, for those who are unfamiliar. For PGA professionals from across the nation, it acts as a de facto retirement community.
There are many golfing communities in Florida, but none compare to Port St. Lucie, which has a thriving community with people of all ages. Despite the demographic’s tendency toward older people with gray hair, the dining is excellent, with lots of fresh seafood and a noticeable international influence.
Each of the three original PGA Village courses—Wanamaker, Ryder, and Dye—has undergone renovations to keep up with contemporary technology, but the Dye Course has really benefited from these updates.
PGA Village Dye Course
To Dye’s original specifications, the greens were renovated. Fairways, collars, and greens were regrassed with an endless variety of turf grasses, each with a specific strength, such as drought tolerance or shade resistance. Bunkers were redone with pure white beach sand.
The end result is a visual feast, painted in various shades of green and highlighted by numerous bunkers, wrinkles, and contours that can make you forget that the terrain is ironing board flat and covered in palm trees. Putting is simple as long as you are aware of how the Tif-eagle Bermuda’s grain affects putts.
(On the Dye, two locals clarified the correct way to read a putt’s grain by explaining that the clean edge of the cup is where the grain runs to and the shaggy side is where it grows.)
When he was hired to renovate Dye’s work, which had fallen into a sad state of disrepair with grass growing in bunkers and poor maintenance exacerbating drainage issues, Superintendent Dick Gray claimed, in a roundtable discussion with reporters last year, that he was intimidated.
When Gray worked decades earlier at Crooked Stick, a different Dye creation in Carmel, Indiana, the two men had become acquainted. Gray claims that after getting in touch with Dye and informing him that he had been assigned the task of restoring the course, Dye welcomed him and provided advice all throughout the undertaking.
The fact that Gray was chosen as the 2016 Superintendent of the Year in February was undoubtedly influenced by his success with the Dye renovation project.
According to the club’s reservations engine, a round at the Dye course with a cart and practice balls costs between $97 and $139 through January. The majority of the best tee times are already booked. A ton of condos in the neighborhood are available for buddy groups to rent, and stay-and-play packages are offered by the nearby Hilton Garden Inn.