robkarrob

Played Thursday April 12, 2018. Have played this course 7 times in the last 4 months. Great as usual with fantastic conditions and fast, smooth greens. Beautiful front nine with undulating fairways and pretty bunkers. Back nine is nice but not as picturesque, except for beautiful hole 18. Many holes are wide open off the tees and the difficulty of this course is around the very undulating and very fast greens. Give it a try, I think you will like it.

Played Rosedale Friday April 6, 2018. Course was in great condition and the greens were fast and smooth. I have played this course many times and it was in the best condition I have seen. The only issue was the pace of play was slow at 4 1/2 hours, but at this time of the year that is not unusual. Highly recommended.

Played 6 weeks ago and River Club was good. But played Thursday April 19, 2018 and it is starting to get bad. River Club like many courses in the area heavily over-seed for winter/spring. But when the hot weather comes back the over-seed dies out and that is what is happening. A majority of the greens had large areas of dead grass (over-seed) which will soon be bare dirt. Areas of the fairways are similar. The problem is when the over-seed dies out only dirt remains. This will be an issue all summer until they over-seed next fall, a lot of bare ground on the greens and fairways. DO NOT PLAY if you value good course conditions. Wait till late fall 2018.

Have played River Run four times since January 2018. The course was heavily over-seeded and in good shape and very green. Last played Monday April 2, 2018 and the condition has gone down hill fast. Fairways and greens very browned out and many bare spots showing. The hot weather has started causing the over-seed to die out and where the over-seed was once lush, now it is dying and turning into dirt. I do not play this course in the late spring, summer, or early fall as the course has minimal good permanent grass on the fairways and around the greens. Also many of the greens are looking bad and some will soon be only dirt. Too bad what the summer does to courses that rely on over-seed for a quick fix to poor course conditions. It only works in the cooler temps.

Played Tuesday 3-27-18. Great layout and front 9 has a lot of undulating fairways which is very unusual for this flat area of Florida. Course just looks beautiful and has lots of tees to choose from. Relatively easy off the tees and wide open, but challenging around the greens with very fast and very undulating greens.Highly recommend playing Lakewood National.

Played Monday March 5, 2018. Had played 3 weeks ago and the greens are now even better. They were smooth and quite fast, and on a few holes the greens were so fast that a few uphill puts would roll back down and that is fast. Rest of the course was in good shape. Only negative was very slow play. Round was 2 hours 15 minutes on the front and a much longer 2 hours 45 minutes on the back for a 5 hour round. Just takes all rhythm out of the round.

Played Thursday 2-22-18. This course has a great layout but the condition was not very good. Lots of dead grass and bare fairways. Example the second green had 10 yards of bare ground, no grass for 10 yards directly in front of the green. A lot of the course has similar conditions and it keeps getting worse as time goes on. They had very little play this day and most courses are full this time of the year. Condition versus lack of play is evident. Only savings grace is for the most part the greens were fairly good. Too bad such a great layout gets poor maintenance.

Played River Run Thursday Feb 1, 2018 with an on time tee time of 12:30. No driving range here so I arrived only 5 minutes early. First green was somewhat mushy and soft so I blew my first putt way long thinking the green would be slow. Was I wrong. All greens were mushy but were fast and fairly smooth except for the many spike marks and scruffs from people that do not know how to pick up their feet. Overall the course was in the best condition I have seen in several years. This course has a number of tough holes along with a few very short par 4's. Pace of play was the normal slow for this time of the season and it took 4 hours and 35 minutes. Other than pace of play I would highly recommend River Run, especially for their modest prices.

Serenoa is the course to play if you want a 5 hour round. Played Saturday Jan 20, 2018 with a 1:00 pm tee time. Had to wait 15 minutes and did not tee off until1:15. First hole played at a normal pace of play but the second hole, a par 3, there were 3 groups waiting on the tee and our group made group #4. How can a course put the times so close together that you have 4 groups waiting to tee off on the second hole? It took 25 minutes for us to be able to tee off on that hole. The rest of the round was wait 5+ minutes on every shot. Took 5 hours to complete and finished in the dark. The only good thing to say was the greens were smooth. This is one of those courses that jam players on for revenue with no regard to speed/pace of play. They did have a ranger on the course but complaints to him did no good.

Played Thursday Jan 11, 2018. Overall in good condition. Greens were heavily over-seeded and smooth and somewhat fast. You could easily tell without the over-seeding the greens would have been bad. Tees and fairways were good. Like all courses in this area they are getting pricey. Only problem was I showed up as a single at 12:30 and they had no players going out. I was told the course would not allow a single to go out. I had to wait 1 1/4 hours until a threesome showed up and I was allowed to join them. BAD POLICY.

Myakka Pines has 3 nine hole courses. I played the White and Blue Courses for the first time at 10:00am on Friday December 29, 2017. Found the course fairly easy to play. The overall course was in good condition with new greens which were in very good shape. Greens were somewhat fast and nice and smooth. This course gets a lot of play and the parking lot was full. Even so our round took only 3 1/2 hours. It is definitely out in the middle of nowhere and there are no houses anywhere around so it was a quiet and peaceful round. With the low prices for golf I would recommend giving this course a try.

I have played Rosedale many times and this review is for Thursday December 28, 2017 with a tee time of 12:30pm. The course has a great layout, a little on the narrow side but more than fair. Only complaint was not normal for this course. A number of greens had bare spots on the greens. Plus the greens were slower than what would be normal. Again in my many years of playing Rosedale this was the first time I have seen the greens that slow along with a number of bad areas on the greens. Other than that from tee to green the course was great and our round took less than 3 1/2 hours to complete.

Last played 6 weeks ago. Greens were super fast and with all the slopes and levels on the greens made putting and chipping very difficult and that led to a 4 1/2 hour round due to all the extra strokes around the greens. Played Thursday December 21 and the greens were fast but not overly fast and that made for a much better round and we played in 3 1/2 hours. If they keep the greens at the current stimp speed of about 8-9 this will allow for better scoring and will speed up the pace of play. As I previously reviewed the course is visually beautiful, has a great layout, and in excellent condition.

Played Monday December 18, 2017 and was happy to see the improvements made to Misty Creek Golf Course. Last played 2 years ago and said I would not return until this course was improved greatly. It was at that time in very bad condition compared to other area courses. Misty Creek put in new greens last year and I gave it another try. Greens were great, smooth and fairly fast, with only a few greens that had numerous old ball marks damage, which seemed unusual since the rest were in great shape.Tee to green the course is in good shape. Misty Creek has a good blend of a few easy holes, a few tough holes, and the rest moderate challenging holes winding through a wooded setting with lots of wild animal life, like deer and alligators. This course tends to have relative lower pricing for the area and now I would recommend playing Misty Creek, especially for the low pricing.

Played Monday November 27, 2017, Course was recently over-seeded and was fully grown in. This over-seeding made most of the greens nice but a little slow. A few greens, mostly on the back nine, had some bare spots. I was told they are mowing the greens a little higher than would be normal, to make sure they don't damage the over-seeding. Tee to green was good but many thin and bare spots if you get off the fairways. This course is often on the low end of the pricing spectrum and for those looking for a good course at a fair price I would recommend playing the Preserve Golf Club.

Played Friday November 17, 2017. I have played this course many times but not recently. For first time players to the Highlands the course has a lot of variation of holes and is not a boring course. It has a few tight fairways that wind through a residential community. The course is in the best condition I've played in a long time. A few tee boxes were a little bare but not real bad considering all the play this course gets. Played easily in under 4 hours with a 10:00 am tee time. Fairways were in great shape and the greens were really good, smooth and surprisingly fast with lots of extra run out. Highly recommended for the condition and for the low price and I will be back to play again soon..

Varied hole layouts wander through a residential complex. A mix of holes with a few tight tree lined holes. Tee to green was in pretty good shape and the greens were OK except for some areas where they got some disease, but the greens were not bad and holes were moved away from the damaged areas. They will be over-seeding soon so that should fix the bad spots on the greens. Overall condition was good and the price was very good.

Played Saturday morning, 11-4-17. Course condition and layout was great with lots of rolling fairways and heavy bunkering, which makes for a beautiful looking golf course. Many tees to choose from so distance should not be an issue. However the greens were extremely fast (stimp speed sign at 11). The majority of greens have severe slopes and with the fast green speeds made putting and chipping very difficult. This makes the course very difficult for any mid handicapper (10-12) or higher and we played with a 2 handicapper who had a difficult time around the greens. If the course does not slow the green speeds, they will lose a lot of play due to the difficulty along with the longer round time due to extra strokes around the greens. Our round took 4 1/2 hours with little waiting on the group in front and no one pushing us from behind. This is not a 4 hour round course as currently set up. It is ok for fast greens with minimal sloping, but with fast greens and big slopes it plays like Augusta National and the pros struggle there and would also struggle at Lakewood National around the greens.

Played the Egret and Ibis Courses on April 26, 2016 for the first time. The Ibis course is a very easy course and only the par 3's are challenging. Condition was good and the greens were a little slow, but in good shape. The Egret course is more challenging and has a better overall look to it. The greens were a little faster, but some greens had a areas of fungus damage, but they were not bad. We were told the greens on the Egret course were slated to be repaired in May. Overall an OK course but not worth big bucks as there many better courses in the area.

They have new owners and the course is in much better condition than even six months ago. The new owners seem to be putting condition first over profits. This course is not hard but is certainly not easy. There is a mix of challenging holes. The course has lots of water in play. The practice green was small and was not in very good condition, likely due to high play. I was worried the course greens would be bad, but they were smooth and rolling great. I highly recommend this course for condition and pricing.