[daveac83]

Sent to Golf the Villages "Contact Us" Feb. 26, 2021

This is a tale of two golf courses. Our group played Havana (Kenya/Hemingway) on Monday, Feb. 23 and the course conditions were pathetic. Poor greens with bare spots and sandy areas, thin fairways, and mediocre tees. We played Cane today (Jacaranda/Allamanda) and experienced pretty good greens, i.e. smooth, greenish, and consistently true for putting, and reasonable grass on the fairways and tees. So why the huge difference between the two courses? Every championship course seems to have different playing conditions which generally have deteriorated over the past few years since the winter over seeding process ended. All in my group are in agreement with this assessment. And though The Villages obviously saved millions of dollars over the last few years, the promise that winter course conditions would get better each year has not come to fruition. And each year our greens fees continue to rise and the season rates have been cut from three to two. The latest insult this year is that the high winter rates will continue for an extra month! It’s not only the championship courses with problems either. We played Redfish Run last Sunday and the greens essentially were unplayable. Winter play is expensive and something needs to be done to make the experience enjoyable once again. It is time for a change for the better.

[John_W]

They won't pay attention until you hit them in their pocketbook. My foursome that plays every Friday and are non-priority members put in a request last Saturday for this Friday. We requested 11:56 to 0110 and included 8 courses. They were unable to accommodate our request. So were playing tomorrow (Saturday) instead of our usual Friday. It doesn't seem like the prices or the poor conditions has slowed play at all.