Orange Blossom Hills
 

Played it tonight on the after 5:00 rate. If I had paid any more than $5.00 I would have been really upset.

The greens are horrendous. Most of the fairways are pretty bad but a few were in decent shape.

So far this summer I have played Belle Glade, Hacienda, Palmer, Glenview and OBH. Not one of them is in respectable shape. The after 5:00 rate should be in effect all day.

Dr. Winston, with all due respect, I have not read a post where you complimented the golf course conditions, only complaints. I agree that the conditions are not always ideal, but everything is not always bad either. For the most part, I usually find the golf coursed in reasonably good playing conditions. Perhaps my standard are not the same as yours? Seasonal transitions and green airification are a necessary temporary condition that makes course less than ideal, but I always enjoy golfing none the less. Life is too short to not find the positives in every round of golf we get to play, we are are always a injury or other unfortunate health condition away from not being able to get in the next planned round of golf. A not so good round of golf on less than perfect conditions is way better than not being able to get onto the links. Golf On!

Played Cane today. it's in great shape. It takes time for the courses to recover from over seeding. Give them a break

Great post.

Again, for those of you that have nothing to do but complain about the courses, I doubt anyone from the Golf and Country Club Division reads TOTV. Take the time it takes you to write a post about how horrible the conditions are and call the folks at 352.753.3396 and express your displeasure to them; no one on TOTV can solve your issues.

I don’t golf, don’t care. But they’re nice to look at. [emoji16]


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Totally Agree!!!!!!:wave:

Sorry folks, but I tend to agree with the good DR. For what is supposed to be a golfing community, the conditions we play do not meet that standard. I have never seen anyone here roll the greens. They are always bumpy and slow. Sand traps almost always need to be raked. My ball usually ends up in a foot print.

I can go to many courses just outside the Villages and find better course conditions. With the number of golf courses we have here, they should have the funds to hire the best groundskeeper in the world. And because of the economy of scale, that groundskeeper should be able to maintain pretty great conditions year round by closing 9 and doing the necessary maintenance. They continue to use the big plug punching here while most courses have moved to needle punching on greens.

IMHO they are going to take this place to a very second class golf community because they give the maintenance to the lowest bidder who doesn't seem to have a clue how to do it right. Golf courses need lots of maintenance. And it is very obvious that a lot of necessary maintenance is done very shoddy or at the very least not as often as it should be.

I posted a very nice comment about Briarwood a while ago. If I see something positive I'll comment on it. So far, these golf courses are in deplorable conditions. It'snot a question of being ideal. Mediocre would be fine.

These so-called championship courses remind me of some of the worst municipal course I played up north.

I hear all the excuses. Heavy play in the winter time, the weather is not cooperating and on and on. I've worked at and played many golf courses in Florida and they all get heavy play in the winter and deal with the same conditions yet they were in very good condition. The condition of these courses is due to one factor. Not spending enough money on them.

I had an assistant manager of one course tell me that the maintenance budget for that course is $52,000. That's completely absurd. I've worked at good 18 hole private clubs where the maintenance budget was $1,000,000 and that was back in the 80s and 90s.

I don't know what the income level is on these courses but if they're only spending $52,000 to maintain 18 or 27 holes they have no idea what they're doing. The money from green fees has to be going somewhere else.

I was also told that the golf course maintenance is controlled by the districts. They have people who know nothing about golf or golf courses holding the purse strings.

I don't know where you've played golf in the past, but if you call these conditions "reasonably good" it seems that you might have played lower end public courses.

These courses are poorly designed, poorly maintained and poorly managed.

They need to get some people that have experience in running golf courses here. And I'm not talking about the managers, professionals or superintendents. I'm sure they are pulling their hair out dealing with this situation.

Orange Blossom
 

To the critical OPs: I say, if you pays your money, you gotta right to complain. And if you don't play golf, stay out of the debate.

Last Friday I played Palmer (Laurel to Riley) and it's the plushest I've seen a golf course here since I came in 2011. Especially after you play Evans Prairie or Bonifay where the fairways and even the rough is cut to the bone. All the other couses should take note of how Arnold Palmer is kept.

I had found Cane Garden and Havana to be in fairly good shape considering the heat of the summer, just not as green and plush as Palmer. I'm playing Mallory (Caroline to Virginia) this Friday. Of the three newest courses, it seems Belle Glade is usually the best, the fairways there are at the level that it took Bonifay five years to reach, and in some cases still haven't reached. Plus on Bonifay Pensacola the Par 5 ninth hole is a temporary par 4 until they reopen the green, which was scheduled for August 1st.

I think if Doc played a rotation of Havana, Mallory, Palmer and Cane Garden he would find overall better conditions. That's where we mainly play plus the three newest, which we know going in are a little skimpy on the grass.

I now see new meaning in the lyrics.

beatles fixing a hole - Google Search

I played Copperhead in Palm Harbor last week. I don't have any expectations of TV courses as compared to that. I just view TV courses as being out on a nice day. Are people allowed to smoke cigars on TV courses?

As far as I know they are. Smell cigar smoke quite often when I'm playing. I would think trying to smoke a stogie and swinging a club at the same time would be hard to do.:D

Yeah good point it has to be a Tony Soprano type!

I played Palmer last week and was very disappointed. For the most part, the fairways were OK. I hit it into the fairway on the second hole of Cherry Hill however and was on hard dirt. The greens were atrocious but they had been aerified and topdressed recently. Many had large bare patches which are going to take a long time to come back. I'll try those other three courses and let you know what I think.

What I notice on a lot of our golf courses is that the greens don't have much of a root system. It's almost impossible to properly fix a ball mark because the turf just comes right out of the ground when you try to pull it toward the depression.