Post by Richie3Jack on Jul 19, 2013 13:12:46 GMT -5
I had driven by the LPGA International Golf Course almost every other year since it was established in 1994. It is located just a few miles off of I-95. I think it has lost some steam as far as popularity in the Central Florida/West Florida/Space Coast/Daytona/St. Augustine are in the past few years because of so many establishments have used their blueprint. If you go to the West Florida area, you have the Innisbrook Resort and World Woods north of that. They have also created Streamsong Resort which is supposedly out-of-this-world great. In the Orlando area you have Orange County National. Then up north there is the World Golf Hall of Fame in St. Augustine and of course...TPC Sawgrass.
With that said, LPGA International is extremely alive and extremely well. When we went to the course the place was packed, mostly for an upcoming junior golf event. I was surprised to see that they allow the members to wear a t-shirt. But, don't let that fool you into thinking that the place has gone to hell. The facilities are in tip-top shape, the help is extremely kind and helpful. And most importantly, the course was in picture perfect condition.
Golf in the summer in Florida is weird. You get the extremes of weather in the summer. It usually turns into a boiler room by 10 am and when it reaches its peak, the showers come in at around 2-4 and last for about 15 minutes to an hour. This can provide for terrific conditions or rough conditions depending on the resources and the skills and knowledge of those taking care of the course. And from the looks of it, LPGA International has the best people for the job.
LPGA International is a 36-hole facility with a 3-hole practice course. It reminds me of World Woods as it has a gigantic practice area (albeit smaller than World Woods' impossibly large practice area). And it has a bunch of different putting greens as you get to the first hole. We played the Legends course, an Arthur Hills design that plays to 6,950 yards from the back tees. That's not particularly long for myself, but I found it to be a tough test nonetheless.
The Legends course is fairly tight. It reminds me a bit of Rio Pinar in that it's not incredibly tight from a trees perspective, but when you combine the 'tree tight' holes with the holes where it is 'rough tight' you end up getting a difficult challenge. And the rough is deep in the extremely plushy Bermuda rough sense. Although I find that type of rough is more of an issue around the greens and with shortening your drives. I find that I can hit it pretty well out of that rough, but it kills driving distance and those chips around the green are tough to gauge how the ball will come out of it.
I had the greens at a very smooth 10 on the stimp, fairly impressive for a Florida course in the middle of July. I never got what greens grass they were using, but it looked like some sort of Tif-version of grass, but I don't think they were TifEagle or TifDwarf. They may have been a Miniverde.
Out of the course, there was only one hole I didn't like, the 3rd hole. It's a short par-4 with a relatively narrow shoot to hit out into. If you miss a hair to the right, you're cooked. The 18th hole wasn't exactly a favorite of mine either. However, I think if one played it enough they would understand the hole better and it is a picturesque shot into the green. I also thought #7 was a bit unfair because you can't miss the green and it's a 207 yard hole from the back tees. It didn't help that we also played that hole into the wind.
The holes I liked best were the par-5 8th hole, the par-3 12th hole and the par-5 16th hole. I ended up shooting 79 (took a 9 on the par-5 14th hole) It's certainly a course that will test your driving acumen and I plan on playing it a few times before the Mid-Am qualifier as it has some similarities to Legacy Club at Alaqua Lakes, except I find it much more difficult. It also has smooth, fast greens so the transition to tournament style greens won't be such a shock to the system.
In the end, all of us thoroughly enjoyed playing there. The rates are pretty cheap ($27 a person). I don't think they are overly expensive in the winter time either, so if you're staying in the area for vacation, it's certainly worth looking into playing. Or at the very least, a place to practice if that is all you can get in. For more information, check out their Wikipedia page below.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LPGA_International