Trump National Doral Miami - Blue Monster Course

Very challenging golf course. The numerous bunkers make accuracy a must. The greens will test your putting skills.

Be prepared to spend another 100$ or so on top of your greens fee but it was an awesome experience!

No doubt an elegant course in pristine condition, ... but

Starting at the driving range - after paying $250 for my round I don't expect to have to hit off a mat at the rang using old battered Taylormade balls that you'd find at a muni. Bunkers had no sand and were hard packed. Many, many bunkers so to save a bit of money there was only one rake per bunker, usually buried in the tall grass surrounding the bunker. By hole 14 with a 4some on our heels we gave up searching for the rake and moved on. Actually didn't make much difference since the ground was so hard there was no footprints. If $250 was not enough it cost $20 to valet your car or &15 for self-parking. Then your clubs got handed over to multiple people all with their hands out expecting a tip. Final indignity was that although I had a confirmed tee time as a single when I got to the starter I was told that the people that the twosome that I was paired with didn't want anybody else with the and I had to wait 45 minutes to go out. Not an overall pleasant experience at a fine course.

Great course to play. Extremely wide perfectly manicured fairways . Couple par 4 reachable from tee boxes. Course offers lots of risk reward opportunities . Michael the starter was extremely professional and handled a prolonged rain delay gracefully and skillfully. The facility itself is incredible. Play it. The head cart guy was an idiot though.

The blue course is a great track but brutally tough! Bring extra balls because water is on play on almost every hole. The greens were in great shape and rolled more true then many of the other "elite" courses. The changes made with the new ownership is good but the price tag attached to the blue course is a bit much. I teed off early in the morning and i didn't see a single person on the course. In talking to my caddie, and pro shop staff, they have been slow. Which may be due to the $400 price tag to play it.

I played the Blue course Sunday in a shotgun tournament that was organized by a friend of mine. The golf was good....but i was disappointed when I called the club and ask for my sunglasses I had left in the cart. They had disappeared from the time I finished playing and the time I called the next day. I find it a little disconcerting that a golf club that can charge the rates they charge doesn't have honest people working in the cart shed. I've never lost an item that I accidentaly left in a golf cart in all my 50 years of play.

Played the monday after the WGC. I cannot even describe how nice it was. Fantastic tour quality track

Despite Donald Trump's egoistic bellowing about his remake of Doral, it is still an over-played, over-priced, tired course. Back in the 60's and earlier its claim to fame was length. That's no longer the case and the holes don't make up for its age. Some courses improve with age, this one stayed relatively static.

I used to be a member but left because of the decline of the course and general facilities. Notwithstanding the fresh paint and surface renovations, it is still the same mediocre course it was. The other courses have been given new names and routing, but are essentially the same uninspired layouts. A name like Red Tiger may sound great, but it is still the old Red woman's course. Same with the Gold and the White which is only leased for another couple of years.

There is no question, Gil Hanse and his partner, Jim Wagner, vastly improved Doral Blue. They cleaned up sight lines, varied some elevation throughout the routing, moved some greens, added contours to putting surfaces, made it a better experience for the galleries who will assemble for professional events and they updated the driving range for a resort with multiple courses. But did they make it easier? No. And that wasn't necessarily the objective, after all, this course does host a World Golf Championship and it's "The Monster." Thus, it's critical you pick the appropriate tees here, and caddies can really help you make proper club selection and read the new greens. Trump tries to make the case that the airplanes on approach to the Miami airport are a premium, but I disagree. They're big, loud and they're coming in so low you'll be inclined to back off a few shots and putts throughout the round. And it's only one reason why I balk at the $450 green fee (add $70 and a $30 gratuity if you take a caddie). Trump has not only raised the quality of the course, but at $550, he puts Blue in the company of some of the elite and most expensive golf experiences in the world. Does Blue compare to Pebble Beach? Is it worth more than Pinehurst No. 2? No and no. Prior to Trump's changes, Blue was $350 and it wasn't worth it. What would've been great is if Trump made the changes and dropped the rate to $250. To that, I would've said yes. In the meantime, you'll get an elite level of conditioning, service and you're paying for being in Miami, the weather in the winter months and the opportunity to play where the pros play, but be prepared to get beat up...on the course and in your wallet.

Let me qualify my experience at Trump National Doral by saying that I had the pleasure of playing with the owner. As you may imagine, golf with the "Big Boss" has it's advantages. The service was impressive and the golfers on the course ahead of us just "got out of the way." I learned later that everyone we played through got drinks on the house. Donald Trump is very proud of the New Blue. And he should be. Gil Hanse has done a fabulous job of taking a golf course that had one hole you would remember, preserving that 18th hole, and adding 17 more you will remember for a lifetime. The Old Blue was dated, faded, and somewhat boring. The New Blue is an instant classic. The work done here is not simply a new coat of paint. Hanse told me he cut down to the bones and rebuilt the all important parts of the course you can't see. Drainage and conditioning will be dramatically improved. As for the parts you can see, improvements are delightful. Significant elevation changes, large undulating greens, classic bunkering, and strategic design all come together to make this a visually interesting and very challenging golf course. We won't know how the scoring will play out for New Blue until there are couple of Cadillac Championships in the books. My intuition is that scoring will be more difficult than Old Blue but not dramatically so. While New Blue is longer, the greens are more generous and misses on the proper side provide an opportunity to save par. Wind will always be the biggest factor in scoring on this property.

Please note that I rated conditioning as 4 rather than 5. This is due to the fact that grow-in was not quite complete when I played. I think conditioning will be a bit of an issue for the 2014 Cadillac Championship. The greens will likely be inconsistent in speed and firmness. And a few fairways on the back nine are not 100% covered. Apparently, not even Donald Trump can make grass grow quicker. But getting this course to where it is in the short time available is nothing short of miraculous. And long term, conditioning will be outstanding.

When all construction is complete, Trump National Doral will be a true golf destination resort. Serious golfers will appreciate the thought and effort that has gone in to revitalizing this iconic property. Certainly Donald Trump is a divisive character that has more than his fair share of detractors. But even his harshest critics will have to admit that what he has accomplished here is very impressive. Mark my words. Before all is said and done, Donald Trump will be known and respected as a "golf guy." After spending a day with him at Trump National Doral his love of the game is evident.

I liked it a lot, but didn't love it as much as others seem to.

The new Hanse redesign is much better, but it's still the same routing and it's still Doral, which never did much for me in the first place. As a buddy said "if you were dropped out of the sky onto this place, you'd look around for 1 second and know exactly where you are."

The par 5s are much more challenging, and Nos. 15 and 16 are dramatically different with much more water coming into play. The greens have been redone and now there seem to be bunkers that come into play more than ever before.

Again, I liked it. Didn't love it.

Its always an unusual experience when you play a course with the owner and a former champion of a tour event played on the course but such was the case for me and Charlie Rymer when we played the new Blue designed by Gil Hanse. being hosted by Donald Trump and Rocco Mediate meant it was going to be an interesting day but the review of the course was a central focus of the day. I had not played the blue in decades and from the outset it was clear that the course was all new despite maintaining the general routing of the previous incarnation. Immediately you saw a far more pleasing looking course with the vistas created and the removal of dense vegetation that never factored into the design of the course. The land is very flat and there is simply not much you can do about changing that however Hanse and Jim Wagner, his chief shaper, created mounding away from tees and greens that will greatly enhance the pleasure of the fans at the World Golf Championship without contriving design features that influence the playing of any holes. The massive soil movement was to create brand new holes and we they created is sturdy, strategic, and as dramatic to the eye without being artificial they could be achieved on the property. From the opening hole to the final green the most prevailing feature are the pearl white sand bunkers that are visible across the landscape. Hanse has restored several of the great works of AW Tillinghast and their key features are the facings of their bunkers that give the player a very clear idea where the trouble lies while visually creating a dramatic scene for every golfer to enjoy across the entire course. The facings of all the fairway bunkers on the new blue are pushed up and they are not homogenized. They are singularly unique to each other and are practical to the strategy of each tee location. The course has a clever ebb and flow with short, medium and long amongst all the par 3-4 and 5's. Pay particular attention to the contouring of the greens on the short par 4's. More severity and potential run offs because Hanse understands a short club should require more precision. The dramatic pushing of the 9th green 75 yards closer to the 18th green produces a massive viewer area and also a beautiful scene to end your round. The finest stretches in my estimation are 3-4-5, 8-9-10 and 15-16-17-18. Players will thoroughly enjoy the 150 yard, from the back, 15th and the drivable, for the elite player, 16th that has the best example of Hanse's superior bunker work. The Blue Monster is an expensive proposition, one of the highest green fees in the country, but it has clearly reclaimed its status as one of the best in Florida and Gil Hanse has proven that he can take a tired old dame and restore her to a challenging yet glamorous beauty.