Sorry for the delay in posting! I know everyone was waiting with bated breath.. Happy belated Memorial Day, it’s important for us to reflect on the sacrifices others have made in pursuit of life, liberty, and freedom. To celebrate memorial day, I played golf! Well, in the morning I golfed, the afternoon, I reflected.. <with a few beers, some dogs, and some awesome company>

Here’s my take on Hunters Creek.

The round kicked off at 0729, I played with a friend of mine and we picked up a 3rd, a nice guy named Sergio. He has some serious power in his swing and he plays it pretty well. He owns his own commercial AC company, so if you find yourself in need of his services, let me know 🙂

As you can see from the picture, the course has seen better days. Now, granted, they informed us before the round started that they were aerating the greens, but as far as I know, that doesn’t include any work on the fairways. Unlike other course I’ve played soon after an aeration, they gave us a free round to come back and play once the greens are fully regrown. Two rounds for the price of one! Not too shabby, the deal is still going on, so you might want to take advantage while you can.

Back to the fairways, it seems like every hole we played had multiple brown patches, reminds me of one of those funky Christmas green and brown candy canes.. They weren’t the type of brown patches that would affect the play of your ball (like replacing the fairway with hard packed dirt) they were an eye sore and nothing more…. (was a poet and didn’t know it)

One thing that really irked me, is that the 2nd green was under repair so they moved the green forward 50 yards and didn’t bother to inform anyone. I’ve been tracking my rounds for the golf digest challenge and I wasn’t sure if I should have counted the hole as a par 5 or a par 4, kind of irritating…

Some of the local members are from the wrong side of the track. We saw a reenactment of rocky (Yo Adrian!!!!!!!!!) on the 4th hole, there seems to have been a discrepancy over a ball being hit over the fence and whether it was still playable. We managed to snap a shot of the scuffle.

The head pro said that in his opinion, the two most difficult holes were 9 & 13. Hole 13 wasn’t that difficult, but 9 had it’s share of hazards.

They weren’t your conventional ones either… The hole is a dog leg left and it turns at about 175 yards. I <not surprising> over shot the mark by about 20 yards and my ball landed about 7 feet from somebodies property. They had a black iron fence up and behind the fence were a couple of hounds straight out of Dante’s 4th circle… They were barking, spewing fire and brimstone and basically being a real pain in the glute. I wanted to snap a picture, but the heat from their breath melted my camera… Sergio being the hero that he is, attempted to distract the demon hounds while I hit my shot, but to no avail, as soon as I finished my address, they were back to torment me. I still managed a pretty nice recovery shot, but at the expense of a camera, my lunch, and my 3 iron.. Didn’t bother me too much, I don’t hit that club anyway 🙂

The pace of play was a little slower than expected, but we had a foursome of new players in front of us.

The greens were just aerated so obviously, they were playing a bit slow and a bit rough…(“what sound does a dog make?” Ruff, just like your mother likes it Alex!) Is there any scenario where a green has just been aerated and it’s not slow and rough?

Here’s a shot of one of the par 3’s, for the record, I did not hit into the sand!

The most infuriating part of the round was the distance on the score cards was way off the distance of the gps. Sergio brought his Skycaddie and we were stunned at the variance between the two. A little variance is expected for many places, but some of the holes were off by twenty yards. One of the back 9 par 3’s, I think it was 15, card said 184, gps said 207. That’s a couple club lengths off! They need to do some remeasuring and get this fixed asap.

This course is one of the founding members of the Orlando Golf Trail. Here’s a copy & paste of the course info:

Course Designer: Lloyd Clifton
Number of Holes: 18 Holes, Par 72

Tees	Yardage	Course Rating	Slope
Gold	7268	75.1	132
Blue	6856	72.7	127
Green	6482	70.9	124
White-Men	5803	67.9	117
White-Ladies	5803	73.3	125
Red-Ladies	5225	70.0	119

Amenities & Services

• Complimentary Bag Drop Service
• 1,200 Square Foot Golf Shop
• Practice Range – Grass Hitting Tee
• Nike Rental Clubs
• PGA Golf Professional Staff
• Private/Group Golf Instruction
• Beverage Cart Service
• Restaurant and Bar

I’m giving this course 2.5 stars. It was once rated one of the top 75 courses to play by Golf Digest, but I think it’s fallen since. I will be playing it again once the greens are squared away, but to be honest, I was a bit disappointed in the over all course conditions. The staff were great, pretty knowledgeable folks.

There’s 10 courses on the Orlando Golf Trail, I plan to review them all over the next few weeks.

Let me know what you think.

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..

-Dave