Post by Richie3Jack on Aug 19, 2013 8:47:34 GMT -5
Right down the road from Reunion Resort and only a few miles from Disney World is Champions Gate golf resort. It's a 36-hole resort that is also host to David Leadbetter's main headquarters. Both the International and National courses are designed by Greg Norman with the International being more of a Australian links style course and the National being a bit more like a Parkland design.
We had played the International course before. It was quite difficult on a few holes and we were looking for something new and hopefully a little more friendly. That was certainly the case. Condition wise the course the course was in pretty good shape for the summer with all of the recent rain we have had. The greens were a little rough in some areas, particularly on holes where it was tucked away in a corner as they appear to struggle to get the sun and wind need to keep them up properly. But, that was only on a few holes.
The course does take good care of the golfers. They greet you warmly and since it was the Summer, they let us tee off whenever we wanted to. As we got onto the 3rd hole, the cart girl informed us of an incoming storm and what procedures were going to take place when the storm was nearby. Then as we finished it finally started to pour and the bag drop workers graciously took us to our cars. They did have GPS, but I've found that model of GPS is worthless. I'm skeptical of its readings to the hole and it would record anything from a 75 yard tee shot (that I struck well and probably went about 280 yards) to 210 yard tee shots.
The course itself was a bit of an interesting design as it plays to 7,128 yards from the back tees. But, it has several short par-4's. Most golfers would end up laying up off the tee and rightfully so, it just wasn't feasible to hit driver on holes like #5, #7, #10, #12, #15 and #16. The course 'made up' for those short par-4's by having some extremely long par-5's like #13 (627 yards) and #17 (636 yards) and long par-3's (all longer than 200 yards). What was interesting about National is the greens were usually either extremely wide or very narrow, but extremely deep. This leads to a lot of 'fringes in regulation', although the fringes are well manicured that one can putt on them fairly easily.
Overall, I thought the par-5's were pretty good, the par-3's were bland and the par-4's were pretty solid.
Out of the holes, the ones I liked best were:
#1: 434 yard par-4
Water on the right side , but room to bail out left. Can't go too far left as that leaves the golfer with a longer approach shot and possibly a tough lie.
#3: 517 yard par-5: Reachable par-5 that calls for a drive to be hit in-between two fairway bunkers. And then the 2nd shot has to go over a small grouping of trees up by the green. Hit a good drive and it's an easy hole. Hit a weak drive and now you're hoping to make par.
#7: 384 yard par-4: Short hole with a narrow fairway and a giant fairway bunker on the right side. I hit driver off the tee, but the play is to lay up off the tee. The green is settled below and is a picturesque approach shot.
#10: 376 yard par-4: Another fairly short hole that is very tight with trees left and right and some water to the right as well. I would have to play this hole some more as conventional wisdom says to lay-up off the tee, but I think one could probably be just as good to hit driver and see if they can make it over the initial set of trees on both sides of the hole. While it's a strategic gem, it's also a very pretty hole as well.
#17: 636 yard par-5: This is one of the most difficult par-5's one will ever play because it's long and you're likely to be left with a tough approach shot. The 2nd shot is just as tough because there's water all up the left side that hugs the green and fairway bunkers on the right that make for a tight shot and you have to hit it long. I would probably have shortened one of the par-3's on the back nine in order to make the back nine a bit more reasonable given the length and difficulty of this monster of a hole.
The only hole I didn't like on the course was #5. It's a 323 yard par-4 where you have to lay up. I used a hybrid off the tee. However, you cannot see the fairway and it is difficult to gauge where to aim and you won't see the ball roll anyway. Then the green is tucked in a corner of these trees and it's simply not in good condition because the design was not very well thought out.
Overall, I enjoyed the course as it was fairly fun to play and a bit more reasonable than the International course. The International course has more exotic holes, but the holes at the National course are much more practical.
3JACK