knightsofnii

This course appears to have once been a very exciting and challenging course.

I will say that the fairways and tee areas are standard, to acceptable, for a public course.

The greens are absolutely awful. The carts are absolutely awful. It appears as if 1) the greens "got sick" and are under some kind of state of repair; or 2) they have simply been let go, and are suffering from general lack of attention or under staffing.

The cart seemed 30 years old, was very rickety, and barely got out of its own way, everything was loose. There was a nice fully-functional gps unit on the A pillar though.

My own home course in NJ had an incident with their greens, where almost all of the grass died from some type of disease. They discounted the fees to about 15 bucks, and let people play thru the bad times, they called in some PGA/USGA greens management pros, rebuilt the greens, cut down some trees to get more wind swirling and more sunlight, and they are now some of the best greens I've played on. I only say that, because I HOPE that Villa Delray may be suffering from something like this. There is a ton of green seeding type stuff laid down on the greens, either that, or they painted green over the mud with green paint, it's really hard to tell!

For what I paid, $35, search for something else. Though it seems the public choices in the area are all similar, review wise. If you can catch some deal for $10.99 - $20 or free even, that would be acceptable. I still managed to have fun despite the bad conditions, and my bad scoring round where nothing seemed to work. I was paired up with two gentlemen who were just great partners for a round. The pace of play was just fine at pretty much exactly 4 hrs.

The course IS quite a challenge. Lots of doglegs and hidden pins, many obstacles, just tough to shape shots and spin the ball right when every single lie seems to be hazard, where the fairway itself seems a hazard. With all that said, in the end, golf is fun, I had a blast, and it was an absolutely beautiful day

if you get the opportunity to play this course, let alone 4 times in a week, you have to just simply take a step back and remind yourself that life is good, and relish in that moment. Dont worry about your score, as this course is very tough and is a training ground for PGA pros. I actually FELT like a PGA pro for a few days: golfing with a caddy each time, getting range time with Pro-V1 range balls, and staying at the host member's mansion. I did not get to meet Lee Westwood or Raymond Floyd, but rather got treated and pampered as if I was among them, you will too.

Course description states 'accompanied by member'. I'm not sure what this means, this is a fully public course.

For an affordable executive course, it is quite fine. A great place to work on your short game. It also has 2 par 4 holes where you can take out that driver and longer clubs. It really gets you to concentrate on ball striking and shot placement, rather than swinging for the fences. Hurricane Sandy gave this course a pounding, but it has since been completely rebuilt and in pretty good shape.

This is a really tough course: blind tee shots, doglegs combined with hills, you really need to play it a few times to get a feel for it.

The greens were in really good shape and the ball rolled nice. But they have lots of pitch changes, and very tough to read. Definitely challenging.

Add 10 shots to your normal score, this should be a par 82!! haha.

You can get your scores back where there are one or two par 4's that are allllllllmost reachable, and one par 5 that I reached in 2 from the whites. Lots of guesswork though, as you can only see a couple of the pins from the tee.

On many holes, the ranger will guide you when its clear to tee off :).

Staff friendly, the food is great at the bar/kitchen, the facilities could use an upgrade though, as they seem quite old. I guess I'm just spoiled by Crystal Springs facilities.

Overall, I had a great time.

I also recommend the golf school: I did the 2 day back in May/June and I had a blast. I learned a new swing that I've been working on ever since, but I've shot my lowest since then and I've never hit the ball so far and solid.

I live right across from Black Bear. I love this course, and its usually the benchmark for comparing other courses. I'm moving in a month, though i'll still be able to play here, definitely not as much.

I imagine the low overall rating is due to its conditions in the past (greens destroyed last summer).

They spent a TON of work getting the greens back to top notch shape, and the rest of the course as a whole. It has opened up a little because trees were taken down to allow wind to hit the effected areas. When they do aerate (all courses have to) they definitely reflect it in the price.

You can often get deals to play this course for $25-30 and sometimes they even have a 9 hole rate. For that price, I believe it's the best public course for the money.

The staff is friendly, the rangers are friendly, the food is good and the snack/drink cart makes more laps than you need. The only thing bad is my game most of the time ;).

First of all, I love this course, but that love is fading...

The entire course was empty yesterday. A group of women were finishing hole 1 as their last hole, and I was early so I waited it out.
Teed off the second hole, and then a cart comes by with a mom, pop, and their two kids. The kick balls come out and they go to the ladies tee,
which, at this point is in front of me, and start kicking.

I whiz past them, slowly past their cart of course, and take off to get to my shot that's in a bunker. "stop! wait for the man to hit!" I hear, as I turn
around to see the two kids rolling up to within feet of my cart and the bunker, giggling laughing etc, just kicking the balls everywhere.

I love that they were all having a blast. I love that it's a family course, embedded in what really is quite a nice course design that is also challenging.

I hit a couple bad shots with the thoughts of them in the back of my head. When I got to the green they proceeded to the next hole, and after 5min I was able to tee off, luckily I never caught up to them again. But. That. Was. Annoying.

This has happened more than once, last time I was with other players, and a father/son footgolf pair held us up badly, repeating shots, missing by a mile and kicking it back, etc.

I've been there. 3 Septembers ago, this was the 2nd course I had ever played, and the one I honed my skills on. So I hate to complain. But maybe an intro to golf seminar, focusing not on rules but courtesy and how to keep the game flowing, would be great for all these folks, just to keep the flow of everything going.

I rated food n bev lower because maybe 3 times in 2 years have i seen the snack cart out on cascades.

Not the greatest, not the worst. First tee was backed up 5 groups deep. Waited all day for the group in front of us, and the group behind waited for us all day. Then again, it was Sunday afternoon.

Greens were in good shape, they rolled fast but I could not get them down, very hard to read, they all look nearly flat, definitely was a putting challenge.
The tee boxes were kind of beat up on some holes, and there are no tees beyond the blue tee, which for me is fine.
The par3's were all pretty long, all about 200 +/- from the blue.

My first golf outing in Florida. I'm not sure what the standard is for fairway/rough/greens quality so I will compare them to home: The 'rough' or 2nd cut rolls like our fairways, the fairways roll like greens, the greens are like green painted polished concrete! I believe after much putting I might get the green speed and dynamics down. It made for a lot of 3 putts and overall putting challenge.
There is a ton of water, and warning signs for a mother aligator and her young. Though I never saw any reptiles thank goodness.

We were often worried about our pace of play because the folks behind us just seemed to keep rolling up on us. But at every tee we were waiting for the group in front of us. We eventually let two groups by. I imagine pace of play vs crowds is an issue at almost every course in Florida!!!

Overall I enjoyed my stay, and it turned out to be the better of the courses I played during my visit.