Post by Richie3Jack on Aug 18, 2012 22:02:09 GMT -5
Sugarloaf Mountain Golf & Town Club is a Ben Crenshaw and Bill Coore design located in Minneola, FL; approximately 30 minutes from the Amway Center in downtown Orlando. The course plays to about 7,100 yards from the back tees with an index of 74.1 and a slope of 136.
I had never played a Crenshaw and Coore design, but had generally heard rave reviews about their work, particularly their masterpiece, The Sand Hills, located in Nebraska.
top100golf.blogspot.com/2006/07/sand-hills-golf-club.html
I was interested in Sugarloaf Mountain because I had heard great reviews from some friends I trust when it comes to their tastes in course design. Furthermore, everybody knows that Crenshaw is a great historian in just about every facet of the game, including course design and architecture. I also know that Crenshaw is a big fan of the Melbourne Sandbelt golf courses in Australia, widely considered the greatest small stretch of land for golf in the entire world. Yes, even greater than the Hamptons in New York.
However, I had read some negative reviews which are often difficult to take with more than a grain of salt since you don't know what the reviewer's likes and dislikes are or they may have played poorly and blamed the course or they may just be upset for no reason whatsoever. Then there are the types that are just glad to be out playing golf and give great reviews because they do not have much experience in general.
Pulling up to Sugarloaf Mountain, I knew that the clubhouse was going to be small. Walkabout Golf Club is in the same boat, but actually has a smaller clubhouse than Sugarloaf Mountain. Which is ironic because Walkabout was also designed with an Australian flare to it.
They provided us with a good cart and the cart had a course guide, although in general the course direction was not too difficult to figure out. If there was something difficult to find, it was the cart paths from the fairway and sometimes you had to ad lib.
Conditioning wise, the course was not exactly finely manicured. Although I would imagine that is part of an Australian type design. I think the critics of the course don't quite understand that the weeds and long fescue growing by the bunkers was done by design, not lack of care. But, Crenshaw and Coore designed them so if you hit it over by the traps, it was the penalty for a fairly poor golf shot. I know, crazy idea. (sarcasm meter fully on).
As far as care goes, some of the tees could have been in better shape and the greens could stand to be in a little better shape. Although we are playing it in August where courses with less resources need to keep the greens slower to let the grass grow and not burn out. Of course, there's always my solution...pay the extra money for TifEagle and think dollar smart instead of penny smart, dollar stupid.
Where the other big issue was that the fairways still have quite a bit of weeds in them. They were mowed down, but it's not exactly a well manicured fairway. However, given that it's a new course, I've seen that problem go away after 10 years of diligent work. Rogues Roost GC, just outside of Syracuse, was like that when they built their East Course back in the mid-90's and in about 10 years it went to being one of the finer conditioned courses in all of Central New York, despite getting a lot of traffic, year in and year out.
Design wise, I thought the course was tough, but fair. Exactly what better golfers like, but higher handicaps may take umbrage with. My dad and I played and we only lost 1 ball between the two of us, and that was when I found the ball on #13th hole where I actually found the ball in the weeds right of the green, then walked to my card to get a club and couldn't find it when I returned.
That's probably the overall theme for this course. It's very much along the lines of Pine Barrens (World Woods), Walkabout GC or True Blue GC (just south of Myrtle Beach) as far as that Australian style of design. But, Sugarloaf Mountain is far more playable than those courses.
The front 9 design is fairly 'normal', but the back nine is a little more exotic in its designs. This would lead to some weak holes like #11 and #14, but led to some terrific holes like #12, #16 and #17. On the front 9, I really liked every individual hole although the front 9 was in worse condition than the back 9.
I would say the best holes were:
#1 (433 yards par-4): Classic starting hole that doglegs left and if hit well, leaves a wedge into the green.
#3 (462 yards par-4): Blind tee shot, with ample room. A key to the design, make blind tee shots more easy than difficult. Leaves a terrific view in the approach to the hole.
#9 (517 yards par-5): Has you navigate thru some fairway bunkers on the tee shot and doglegs a little left off the tee than right on the 2nd shot with an elevated green. Gorgeous golf hole.
#12 (575 yards par-5): Requires a quality tee shot and a quality 2nd shot so the golfer doesn't have to worry about landing area 130 yards to the green that is narrow and covered with fairway bunkers. Beautfully done.
#15 (283 yards par-4): Short par-4 that goes straight uphill and requires either a great driver in a tight atmosphere or a 3-wood and a longer shot into the green that can easily spin off the green. My dad spun his about 20-feet off the green as he didn't quite get it far enough to stay on.
#16 (459 yards par-4): long but fair par-4 that has a blind tee shot that is rather simple to execute, leaving a long club into a fairly open green.
#17 (257 yard par-3): At first, I thought this was a dumb hole because it looks like it is all carry. However, it plays roughly 235 yards to the middle due to the down hill slow and the golfer has plenty of room to roll it on or carry onto the green and get it to hold because the tee is so highly elevated. I hit a 2-hybrid that I nutted and hit carried about 230 yards and rolled about 3 yards, despite hitting a downslope in the green.
The only holes I didn't really care for were:
#11: Dinky, 128 yard par-3 that appears like they had bigger plans for other holes and had to find something short in distance to be the 11th hole.
#13: 507 yard par-4 that goes straight downhill (1st picture). Great view into the green on a severely blind tee shot. But, they have to grow the fairway grass higher because a golfer could easily get into rouble if it rolls too far. This left me with a 3-iron into a huge green that was more long than wide and not much room to miss. Probably a very good hole if the tees are moved up about 30-yards.
#14: Tried to make a 378 yard par-4 a severe dogleg with an extreme risk/reward tee shot, but it really doesn't work.
With that, I found the toughest holes to be:
#3 (462 yard par-4)
#5 (200 yard par-3)
#10 (458 yard par-4)
#12 (507 yard par-4)
#16 (459 yard par-4)
#17 (257 yard par-3)
In the end, I had a lot of fun. I wouldn't call it an 'acquired taste', but just what a person looks for in a course. For me, the course was in decent enough condition, the design was interesting, new and fair.
I would sum it up this way. No, I would not want to play a tournament at Sugarloaf Mountain. No, I would not want to pay $60 to play this course either. But at $29 a person it is well worth the trip.
3JACK
