This is a good point. If you look at Richmond P&P, there is no surrounding land. Zero. There's a fence where the Waterlily bridge is, another fence along the turnpike, a fence separating some non Villages property, and the rest is bordered by home lots.

Most of those other executives have some surrounding land that are not part of the actual course but many balls still end up there.

On most executive courses, if you hit from the closest tees the distances are less than 100 yds. 80-90 yds. With a decent hit the ball will roll onto the green. P&Ps are a slightly longer walk (2.3-2.4 miles) than if you walk an executive. Executives allow golf carts so then basically very little walking involved. I speak from experience.

It's disappointing to see all the open tee times for pitch-n-putt Obviously it's not as popular as they expected it to be. A better choice would have been executive golf

Agree, yet another one is in the plans. Go figure?

Have you actually checked the availability on the pitch and putts? I think not, if you look at tomorrow, for example, the only open slots for a 4some are early in the morning and late in the afternoon. Yes, you'll see more 2somes available than on the executives, but I'd hardly call it "all the open tee times".

Quit bashing the pitch and putt courses....they serve a very useful purpose and are actually very popular down here. Otherwise we'll end up clogging up the executives with our 40 yard iron shots.

2 of the 3 pitch n putts are located in places where an executive would not fit. Would you be happier if they just added more homes there instead of adding a pitch n putt? Don't forget that the pitch n putts offload some of the demand for executives.

A lot of people say that there wasn’t room for executive courses on the NE side of the turnpike.

However, they have never explained how there was room for a championship course in the area. Instead of building Southern Oaks, they could have built 2 or 3 executives. From my experience, most people play executive courses and prefer to live closer to executive courses.

If they had, they probably wouldn’t have the problem that they are having selling homes in Lake Denham or Dabney. Those homes would be a short ride from Sawgrass and two executive courses!

Considering there were exactly ZERO Championship courses south of 44, Southern Oaks made perfect sense (there were already 5 executive courses south of 44).

If they hadn't built Southern Oaks, people would be complaining that there were STILL no championship courses south of 44. Plus, they wanted to put the pro shop in Sawgrass, and have the putting course there...

That is a totally different argument. However, from the people that I speak to, most of them would have preferred two or three executives rather than a championship course. Also, there were about 908,000 rounds played on championship courses (324 holes) last year and 2,564,000 rounds on the executive courses (369 holes).

The demand is for executive courses - not the championship courses. And I think they are building two or three championship courses in Eastport.

Actually the announced plans so far call for 3 championship and 4 Executive and 1 pitch and putt west of the turnpike.

I think we’re going to be just fine over here.

And the first championship, executive and pitch & putt courses scheduled to open (later this year) will be just over the new Bexley Bridge that just opened...

All quite close to Southern Oaks...

They really should've added an executive as well as building Southern Oaks. There was plenty of room there to do it at the sacrifice of a few less homes being built. They could've easily got their money back by selling golf course lots anyways.

Some people likely don't realize that the 5 executives that are "south of 44" are nowhere near the villages that are "south of 44" AND East of Morse Ave (Hawkins, Citrus Grove, Lake Denham, etc), more like a 30-40 minute golf cart ride for most of those folks. So that area around Sawgrass has to be the most isolated area of TV when it comes to proximity to an executive course.

That is correct. The only good news is that they are building courses in Eastport. This will help those in Hawkins, St. Catherine, Cason Hammock, Citrus Grove, and Newell. However, if you live in Chitty Chatty, Bradford, Lake Denham, or Dabney, you will still have a long ride to the Eastport courses.

Some people purchased realizing the areas is under development and those courses and all the new ones will be less than 15 min away once McNeil and Corbin are open.

The demand is for executive courses - not the championship courses. And I think they are building two or three championship courses in Eastport.[/QUOTE]

Both Executive and Championship courses give the developer high priced "golf view" lots to sell. But the execs are maintained like public parks, while the championship courses are profit making private property. Like Southern Oaks in the beginning, I would not be surprised to see these new championship courses to have the highest greens fees in The Villages. Perhaps close to $100 per round in the high season?

Agreed. The new Laurel Oak exec that is well underway will be 5 minutes over the Bexley Bridge. Belleaire, next to Eastport, another 5-7 minutes further. Another 10 minutes will get you to the new Beautyberry and Honeysuckle execs that are under development. True a little further from Chitty Chatty, but you can always go north and take advantage of those courses (oh way, 7 of them are closed at the moment....)

More executives would do an even better job of offloading the demand on the existing ones.