Post by Richie3Jack on Aug 12, 2012 19:46:52 GMT -5
Deer Island Country Club (www.deerislandgolf.com) is an 18-hole club that is open to the public, located in Deer Island. Technically, it's mailing address is in Taveres, but it's a long ways away from Tavares, which is northeast of Apopka and about 1-hour from Orlando.
Deer Island was a somewhat prestigous private club at one point, but now allow for tee times. We got ours at 1:40 for $25 a golfer.
The course is designed by Joe Lee and he calls it the 'most unique course he has ever designed.' Granted, it's a fine course and design, but I don't know what is all that unique about the design in itself.
The course plays 6,900 yards from the back tees with an index of 74.5 and a slope of 136. It has water on almost every hole, but many holes the water does not come into play.
The course comes off like a parkland course that likes its doglegs. The par-3's are extremely difficult as the first 3 are around 200 yards long with forced carries. The par-5's provide the player with gambling opportunities and the par-4's are typically a very solid design.
Condition wise the course was in solid condition from most of the tees to the green. A couple of the back tee boxes were in poor shape, like #10 which looks like they just built it but have yet to take care of it. But the more forward tee boxes were in fine condition. The greens were slow when we played, but I believe they are setting them up for aerification tomorrow. The shape of the greens were reasonble, but teh pin placements were not. I would estimate that 15 of the 18 pin placements were at 3% or steeper.
The course is fairly open. The difficulty stems from the hard par-3's and holes like #4. And if you're a little off the first 4 holes can eat you alive and tear down your confidence. In fact, the front 9 is noticeably more difficult than the back 9 which outside of #13 (203 yard par-3 over water) is fairly simple.
The best holes on the course are #2, #7, #9, #11 and #16. I would probably rate #16 the best, a short 480 yard par-5 where the 2nd shot will require either a hybrid or a long iron into a force carry over water.
The lesser holes are probably #4 (short par-4 where you can hit iron and another iron into the green) and #13 (202 yard par-3 that is essentially an island green since you can't miss left, right or long either.
I guess if there's a uniqueness of the course is that the design was more like an old school PGA Tour venue instead of today's TPC courses and TPC wannabes. Overall, you can't beat the price and as long as that price is affordable, it's worth the 1-hour trip from Orlando to come here and a course I would highly recommend vacationers to check out. Just make sure to bring your GPS navigation to get there.
3JACK