Southern Dunes Golf Club - Haines City, FL

[Richie3Jack]

Southern Dunes is a Steve Smyers designed course in Haines City, FL; located approximately 15 minutes from Disney World. The course plays a little over 7,200 yards from the back tees with a 75.5 index and 138 slope.

It is generally regarded one of the best public courses in all of Central Florida and continually gets raves for having the best greens in the Orlando area, using Championship Dwarf Bermuda grass. I had personally heard all rave reviews from people about the course, except for one friend who thought it was overrated.

I would describe Southern Dunes as mostly a parkland style course with a tinge of Aussie dunes to it. One thing that we remarked about the course was how much sand there was and how well manicured the sand was, even if it really didn't come into play.

I think the main theme about this course is the greens. They are not designed with a lot of incredible slopes, but they were the fastest greens I have ever played in Florida, even faster than Shingle Creek, Old Marsh and World Woods. These greens looked to be about 3-weeks removed from aeration and I had them at an 11 on the stimp, which is Augusta-ish in Central Florida. Combine that with severe slopes off the green it becomes a course where getting up and in is not easy and a 40-foot putt can easily be 3-jacked.

Generally, I did not find the course to be all that difficult and nowhere near a 75.3 index as I shot 69 (-3) my first time playing there. My dad struggled all day. Had he struck it like he usually does, I think only the putting would have given him a problem since the greens are much faster than what he is used to playing on.



What I like about Southern Dunes is that there are no bad holes or gimmicky holes out there. It also tends to play like a 7,200 yard course as the long par-3's are usually from an elevated tee and the par-4's tend to play into an elevated fairway.

The holes I enjoyed most were:

#3 (par-3)
#7 (par-4)
#11 (par-3)
#12 (par-5)
#17 (par-4)

www.southerndunes.com/golf/emailer2020/img/southerndunes/card.jpg [/img]

I would say the most difficult holes are #3, #7, #10, #13 and #18.

Overall I would put Southern Dunes on par with Shingle Creek. Solidly designed courses by lesser known architects without a bad hole on the entire course. Immaculate conditions and great service. It's certainly worth checking out if you are in the area.






3JACK

[bigwill]

Richie, I'm curious. You seem to have played a lot of different courses. Do you go looking to play a variety of courses, or have your experiences come from playing in different tournaments, etc? I think I can count the number of courses I've played on one hand, so this kind of thing gets my attention whenever I hear it.

[Richie3Jack]

I look to play different courses. I don't play in a lot of tounaments. There are so many great courses in the area at a cheap price in the summer. Too good to pass up.





3JACK

[bigwill]

How has this variety affected how you approach your game, if at all?

[Richie3Jack]

I think it's helped my game in the long run. I tend to have more knowledge of what course designers try to do. If you play the same course all of the time, you start to get comfortable with the course instead of getting comfortable with your game and swing. You also can start to be more aggressive on a course you play all of the time becase you 'know that shot.'

It becomes difficult on approach shots because it's not always easy to tell where the best miss is or where the uphill putt will be.

I hate to harp on this, but understanding stuff like the Danger Zone makes for better strategies and understanding what the shot is about.






3JACK