Talk of The Villages Florida - View Single Post - Are the Championship golf courses too expensive?
View Single Post
 
Old 03-07-2022, 01:22 PM
laboutj laboutj is offline
Senior Member
Join Date: Oct 2020
Location: Village of Collier
Posts: 336
Thanks: 4
Thanked 237 Times in 128 Posts
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by Laker14 View Post
That's a very reasonable preference on your part. My group played Juliet a couple of years ago. It was in better shape than the Championship Courses here, generally. Not spectacularly so, but it was a nice experience. It was also a hassle getting back and forth, thanks to the Florida winter traffic. The general feeling of the group was positive. However, we have not been back, due to the inconvenience of travel.

This year we did make a trip to El Campeon. Also generally favorable response. Conditions were OK, not great. If better than TV Championship, not wildly so. Much tougher course though. Not as convenient as most of the courses in TV to get to, but not bad. Much easier than Juliet.
My preference, and evidently the preference of our group of 12-20 guys, seems to be convenience. We haven't been back to either place yet, but I'm sure we will at some point. But never on a regular basis to replace the TV courses.
Before renting and eventually buying here in the Villages, our group did a golf trip to Orlando for 6 or 7 years straight in March or April, peak times. We didn't go crazy getting tee times at ridiculously expensive courses but we would look for value, like the buy one tee time and get a replay round for $39 at Disney for our 36 hole day. There are some really nice courses in the Orlando area that we would get deals on through GolfNow, like Celebration Golf Club or Orange County National. Those types of deals are still available and the courses are well worth the drive.

I know if you have a large group it's not practical, but something to consider.