Golf Blog by The Orlando Golf Blogger

My thanks to Sara over at SkyGolf/SkyCaddie, who was kind enough to send me one of these to try out.

So far I’ve used this baby on two golf courses, Ridgewood Lakes and Black Bear Golf Club and I’ve found it to be very useful and a much needed accessory to any golfers arsenal.

Here’s a link to their website: SkyCaddie SG5

You can read the full list of features, specs, etc.. at their website, I’m going to highlight what I’ve found most useful in this golf product review.

You can download up to 10 different golf courses to the unit at any given time. It comes with software that installs the drivers needed to connect the unit to your computer and I believe that it also has the 17,000 golf courses you can choose from on it. I guess it’s not that important, what is important is that they have over 17,000 courses for you to choose from. If for some reason your course is not available for download, the unit also has the ability to map out the course that you play so that it can be reused later. Now, I never had the opportunity to try that out, so I can’t speak to its accuracy or simplicity, but the capability is there.

The unit is real simple to use, once the course is loaded on to the unit, just go to your course, turn the unit on, select the course and your off.

I’ve got to say that the most valuable feature for me is the ball marking. Once your on the course, stand next to your ball, push the ball marking button, hit your ball, and when you get to your ball again, it will give you the distance of your shot.

This has been really helpful to me because I now realize that I’ve been over estimating my shots by 10-15 yards. My drives I’ve been over estimating by about 25 yards… And obviously, if you don’t have a solid, accurate understanding of your distances, it’s going to add a couple strokes per hole. Perfect example, I’m a big fan of hitting my sand wedge 50-100 yards out from the green, I love how the ball soars straight up into the air and lands with very little roll on the green. After using the GPS, I’ve worked out that the max distance I should use that club is 72 yards and once I realized that, I cut at least 4 strokes off my last score.

The unit also has a target feature, so you can see the distances to the various hazards on the course, like distance to the front, middle, and back of the left fairway bunker. This is a good feature of the unit, but in my experience, its not 100% reliable. The first course I played with it (Ridgewood) was very accurate and it included about 90% of the courses hazards, on the second course (Black Bear), it probably included more like 70% of the hazards. But, to their credit, they’re supporting over 17,000 courses, so given that load, anyone could overlook a thing or two.

Using the IntelliGreen feature allows you to see the distance to the front, middle, and back of the green as well as show you what the green looks like from your angle of approach. It’s pretty useful.

Overall, I really enjoy this unit, it boasts a 14 hours battery life with a rechargeable Lithium Ion battery so you can get a couple rounds in off a single charge.

This beast will run you $429.95 and you have to choose from three different membership plans.

Birdie – $29.95/yr, gives you unlimited courses in your state.

Eagle – $49.95/yr, gives you unlimited courses in your country

Double Eagle – $59.95/yr gives you unlimited courses world wide.

Enjoy!

-Dave

Save up to 70% on tee times when you book on GolfNow.com Today!

“IF YOU PLAY GOLF, THERE’S A GOOD CHANCE YOU’LL GET SKIN CANCER”

Ronnie Kapriske wrote a pretty good article pertaining to golfers and skin cancer. It has a pretty disturbing opening line.

Here’s the link: Burned To A Crisp

The doctor interviewed in the article said “I don’t think it’s ignorance, and I don’t think it’s inherent in being exposed to the sun longer, People just don’t care.”

Care we should, one out of every five Americans (one in three Caucasians) will develop some form of skin cancer in their lifetime. Every dermatologist we spoke with thinks the odds are even worse for golfers.

I know I’m guilty of this, always finding reasons not to wear sunscreen, excuses like I’ve got a hat, It’s not too hot out, it’s pretty overcast, etc..

I find the statistic pretty alarming, one out of five!? Why cant awesome stuff like the lottery have odds like that?

Anyway, fellow golfers, Floridians, Orlandoians, protect yourself! Check out the full article if you want to see pictures of the type of cancer you can get, just looking at the pictures made my stomach squirm…

-Dave

Save up to 70% on tee times when you book on GolfNow.com Today!

This is the first I’ve heard of this. Your personal golf outing could be featured in the pages of Golf Digest.

Send Golf Digest the details of your next golf trip and you might get “ambushed” and be featured in the magazine.

Here’s the link: Golf Digest Ambush

This caught my attention because it mentioned Hunters Creek Golf Course. The O’toole brothers, Brian and Mike have been in contention for over 12 years. Every year they plan a golf outing and invite some of their friends and family to join them. They divide them up into teams and host a scramble tournament. Winner gets bragging rights and the cup. Mike has won the past six years and this year, due mostly in part to Brian’s amazing bunker shot, Brian won the tournament.

Read the full article here.

I like this idea, honey, if your reading (sadly she’s not…) here’s an idea for my next birthday!

enjoy!

Dave

Save up to 70% on tee times when you book on GolfNow.com Today!

I had the opportunity to head out to Ridgewood Lakes today, booked the tee-time through GolfNow.com Orlando and it only cost me $20 bucks! T’was a very good deal!

Now, technically Ridgewood Lakes is located in Davenport but I still feel it’s close enough to fall under the Orlando umbrella. It has to be, it’s a part of the Orlando Golf Trail. For those of you who don’t know where Davenport is (myself included), it’s between Orlando & Tampa via SR 275.

I was also able to demo the Skycaddie SG 5 which I shall post about later, but man, what a sweet GPS!

Anyway, I digress… On to the review!

Ridgewood Lakes Golf & Country Club

Playing this course was a real pleasure (well, the course was, the weather on the other hand, was not!).

It’s voted top 30 courses in Florida, not really sure why it’s not a bit more specific, but hey, it allows you to decide where you want to rank the course, as long as you keep it in the top 30..

It’s also voted Best New Golf Course in USA by Golf Digest.

A Ted McAnlis design, built in 1994.

Here’s the course information

Tee	Rating	Slope	Yardage
Black	74.4	137	7031
Blue	72.2	133	6618
White	70.1	128	6172
Gold	68.8	121	5839
Green	74.6	138	5214

The course was a bit soggy (due to all the rain) but in really good shape, The only real blemish I saw was on the 5th green which had quite a few patches of what I call “wasteland” and yes, the term is patent pending. See below.

The course has water on all 18 holes, which in retrospect, makes perfect sense, I did lose a few more balls than usual today… For the most part the water serves as nothing more than an unforgiving OB marker, but there are a few holes where it’s a factor. My worst hole of the day was one of them, lucky #13 has three different bodies of water, with the most irritating being a little stream about 78 yards from the pin (where my beautiful fairway wood shot landed, giving me my 2nd OB of the hole…)

The other most notable was #15. a nifty par 3 with an elevated tee box and a shot over the water, has kind a pseudo Sawgrass feel to it. I believe this is their signature hole, see the picture below.

Yep, this is their signature hole not to mention the most photographed hole on their course (and I thought I had discovered a diamond in the rough, now I feel like I’m touring the tower of London following one of those beefeaters). See this quote from their site.

Hole 15 Par-3 – “Signature Hole.”

Ah, I almost forgot! #9 is a crazy dogleg left which I’m going to label as a blind hole because you can’t really see the fairway from the tee box, you get an idea but nothing conclusive enough to feel comfortable taking the shot. I’m going to make it easy on you, my lovely readers, because I care about your well being and mental health, so here’s what you’ve got to do. There’s a palm tree thats taller than the rest with an extra bushy fronds and furthest on the right almost a straight line from the tee box. Your shot, should you choose to accept it, is to hit to the right of that palm tree. It will land you in the fairway and give you a great lie for your next shot. Do not, I repeat, do not hit to the left at all, it’s no mans land and not a very fun place. See the below picture (sorry I don’t have any photo editing software, but the tree thats directly below the ed in edit is the one to hit at).

I think #7 deserves the tricky hole award. Like a moron I didn’t take a picture, but it’s a very narrow tee shot and theres quite a few oaks on either side of the fairway and their branches hang over the fairway making it almost like launching your ball out of a tunnel. One of the guys I was playing with, hit it perfectly, I on the other hand, enjoy a challenge so I took the path less traveled and hit a tree…

#16 is also worthy of note, definitely keep the driver in the bag on this one, anything over 225 off the tee is going to land you either a healthy dose of H20 or Sawgrass. You know, actually, if you decide to play this course, just leave the driver at home! Looking back, 3 wood off the tee would’ve saved me probably 5-10 strokes. Here’s #16.

It’s funny, I mentioned to the guys that I was with that I felt like this grass had fingers because it kept grabbing my club head and one of them laughed and said that his boss asked him if he had ever tried playing golf in his front yard because “that’s Ridgewood!”

I don’t really know how you would combat the grabby grass, perhaps some Crisco, Spray PAM or WD40?

Overall, I really liked the course, it was pretty challenging for me, had plenty of good and bad shots, but this is definitely the course to play if you want to work on your accuracy, it’ll definitely punish you for errant shots. The staff was very friendly and accommodating and I’ll definitely be making the hour drive to play again!

With my un-official ranking system, I give this course 4 out of 5 stars.

Let me know your thoughts!

-Dave

If you liked this one, feel free to check out my other Orlando golf course reviews and if you’re looking to play, here’s a selection of discounted Orlando tee times.