Post by Richie3Jack on Nov 5, 2012 16:53:32 GMT -5
Mystic Dunes Golf Club is a Gary Koch design located in Celebration, FL. It is right in the heart of Mickey Mouse Country, just off of Hwy 429.
I had generally heard good things about Mystic Dunes, although some friends had told me that it has a few holes that are a little quirky. And given the name, I presumed this was another Florida/Australian sand dune style of design courses.
The facilities are quite impressive. Particularly for this style of design which tends to lend way to more of a rustic feel to most courses. But Mystic Dunes came off with a nice sense of a well conditioned course with great service and going a step above on everything.
In order to enter Mystic Dunes, you have to go thru a giant timeshare and rental community. It gives the impression that the course will filled with housing, but you'll be surprised that is usually not the case outside of 4-5 holes.
The other thing we generally enjoyed about Mystic Dunes was there was some shade protection and plenty of drinking water. It was not particularly hot out when we played, but Mystic Dunes generally made it easy for us to deal with the sun outside of a few holes. While other courses like Champions Gate and Sugarloaf Mountain have great sand dune style designs, there just is not a lot of protection from the sun.
This was my first time playing a Gary Koch designed course. He actually reminded me a lot of one of my favorite designers, the late Mike Strantz. Strantz designed such courses like Caledonia Golf and Fish Club, True Blue Plantation and Tot Hill Farms.
True Blue Plantation
They say that great art takes great courage and honesty. And reading about the life of infamous abstract artist, Jackson Pollack, he once stated to the to the effect that 'you have to learn how to master all of the rules in order to masterfully break all of the rules.'
For guys like Pollack, he was an accomplished contemporary painter before he had the balls to get into abstract drip art. It's something that he found a beauty and artistic nature and he wanted to create that style of art. By creating that art, he risked being laughed out of art gallaries despite being a brilliant contemporary artist.
Unfortunately, there are so many unaccomplished painters who utilize drip art to try and proclaim themselves as artists. It's sort of like the comedian who rips off the safe jokes from the late Bill Hicks and wants to be known as an edgy stand-up comic.
With a designer like Strantz, we saw how well of an accomplished contemporary designer he was in his masterpiece at Caledonia Golf & Fish Club. From there, he created some daring and beautiful works before cancer ended his life.
I'm not so sure about Koch. Mystic Dunes came off more like art than functional golf course design. But I could appreciate the beauty of Koch's artwork here, particularly for a person who is a golfer first, designer second.
The course hits you right in the mouth with the relatively easy first hole. That is until you hit the first green which is completely sublime. Then it hits the golfer with some insane bunkering, but it's pretty nonetheless. The par-5 17th is a great example of this.
I will say that what I have learned from Orlando golf course designs is that they give me the sense that they will be a lot of fun the 2nd thru 10th times I play the course. It's a bit unfair to play a lot of courses in the area for the first time and Mystic Dunes is no exception as it is difficult to decipher where to hit the ball. A good example was the par-4 13th hole which plays 344 yards. I hit a pretty good driver that I thought would be down the middle of the fairway and I ended up being under trees.
Generally we came away liking the course, although it is very difficult at a 75.0 index from the back tees which play 7,012 yards long. The most difficult part was the extremely undulating greens which almost render the golfer helpless in trying to decipher where the best place to miss is located.
The only hole I thought was stupid, although it was beautiful in landscape was the 508-yard par-4 #11...which is relatively flat. I hit a decent driver 270 yards in the middle of the fairway and was blocked at shooting at the green by the trees on the right.
But the holes I liked best were:
www.mysticdunesgolf.com/course/score_card.htm
#2 (par-3)
#5 (par-5)
#7 (par-5)
#10 (par-4)
#15 (par-5)
#17 (par-5)
It's a course that treated us well and for $33 was worth the money for us FLA residents. I would imagine that we'll play it again, although I wonder how much fun it can be for somebody like myself who cannot imagine shooting under par there anytime soon (shot 79). That being said, my dad played pretty well there shooting 87.
3JACK