Post by Richie3Jack on Apr 4, 2012 9:00:22 GMT -5
Orange Lake resort features 3 different golf courses and is located by Disney’s Wide World of Sports in Orlando. I had read good reviews about the Legends course and knew it was designed by Arnold Palmer, perhaps the most underrated designer in golf (IMO).
Again, the service was excellent as they took care of us at the bag drop properly and we didn’t have to wait in line to pay for our greens fees. We were running a bit late and wanted to grab some lunch. They didn’t have hot-dogs (not that it was a priority), but they did let us grab some lunch and go right to the first tee, even though we were late. There course was not busy, but sometimes the course will be unreasonable and make you hurry up regardless, which is annoying when you are putting more money in the course’s pocket to pay for lunch. I did have their mac-and-cheese burger which is a burger with mac-and-cheese on it. Great concept, but they need a much better bun as mine fell apart easily.
The range here was really nice as well with some actual greens to shoot at. The putting green was sorta small, which would be a problem if you’re playing a tourney there, but otherwise it was fine.
Condition wise the course was in solid condition all throughout. Although there was one hole on the front (can’t remember which) where they had a big sand bunker that they decided to split in two and they split it with stones and pebbles. I hated the idea as a golfer can chip their clubs against those stones (even if there is a lift, some stray stones could be struck with a club if you’re not paying attention) and I just don’t see why they wouldn’t use grass there anyway.
Design wise it didn’t quite feel like a Palmer design other than there were no bad golf holes and lots of solid to very good golf holes. Usually Arnie excels at making the most with the least. Like at Bay Hill he’s good at creating a small dog-leg that really doesn’t require the golfer to hit over the corner, but it provides an aesthetic of wondering ‘what’s around the corner?’ Also, Arnie usually creates greens with noticeable and somewhat severe slopes, forcing golfers to keep the ball below the cup. But that wasn’t prevalent here. In fact, after shooting 68 at Legends, I came away thinking how relatively easy the greens were.
Legends is a par 72, but it’s par 37 on the front and par 35 on the back. The back measures about 3,800 yards whereas the back 9 is about 3,200 yards. However, I thought the back 9 was more difficult. For the most part, the front 9 has a couple of tricky shots here and there. But, the back 9 just has some difficult holes like #11, #12, #15 and #18.
The best holes to me were #4 (par-5), #7 (par-4), #8 (par-5), #9 (par-4), #10 (par-4), #11 (par-5), #12 (par-3), #14 (par-3) #15 (par-4) and #18 (par-4). The only hole I didn’t care for was #17 (short par-4).
Unfortunately, Legends at Orange Lake was by far the noisiest course of the bunch, being surrounded by a giant resort area. In particularly we didn’t care for the car alarm that constantly went off and on for holes #11 thru #17. But other than that, we had a good time and it was a solid course to play for our gathering.
3JACK