andrew9521964

I've played spectacular courses and really bad courses. If you want a natural old Florida Track. MCC is tough to beat. Give em a shot if you aren't afraid of a little mother nature.

I would like to preface this review and say that I am not one to typically leave negative reviews and will try to be as fair as possible. I will say that the course is a perfect blend of beautiful and challenging. However I am 100% confident I will never return to the establishment, which is a shame because again I did truly enjoy the course layout and conditions. Last, I was raised proper and carry my self with manners, I am polite, and always dress with appropriate golf attire...no matter the course.

That being said my experience with the staff is where this round got ugly. Other than the yardages being way off on every hole anywhere 25-50 yards in every instance with no consistency. Upon pulling into the course the signage is terrible for getting to the golf club house. By the time I was out of my car and realized I was all the way at the wrong end of the parking lot I figured, "hey its a beautiful morning Ill just walk, nbd." I made it approx. 1/4 of the distance to where the nearest golf carts were when a greeter (didn't get his name i was so taken back) walks out into the middle of the parking lot and stares at me. and stares at me. and stares at me. Not breaking eye contact the entire walk until i was maybe 50-100 ft away when the first thing out of his mouth is "where the h**l did you come from" Rather than hoping on one of the many available golf carts to come pick me up as he sees i'm carrying my bag, he continued to dig into the fact of how "strange" and "weird" it was that I parked where I did. Frankly of the some odd 1000 rounds of golf I've played at every type of course this was by far my worst greeting experience of any course I've ever played. Being that this is a country club with memberships I was even more taken back. What if I was there to consider becoming a member? It got to the point where I had to ask the anything-but-gentleman "if there was a problem with where I parked? And if he and I had an issue." At that stage I think he may have realized how out of line he was to speak to a patron in such a manner. Not that he would know this but this was a round for my Birthday, and not that I deserve any special treatment for that but really was not what I had hoped for or come to expect from country club staff at any other course I've ever played. One would think someone would at least say welcome to our course or ask a friendly question about where I had traveled from (over 35 minutes) to pay to use their facility.

At that point I learned there was no driving range but could use the hitting nets and putting green. Once arriving there obviously no one had cleaned up the balls and it was a total mud pit. once I finished warming up the long game i turned to see the chipping green no one mentioned. I scattered balls anywhere from 10 yards to 30 yards away from the green to work on the best part of my game. I was consistently around the pins I was targeting. It was after maybe 10 balls the tennis pro came out from his court and literally yelled at me "you cant hit that far back! That's pitching not chipping" Now I obliged but was disgusted by his tone and approach. Shoot, I had never been to this course before and there was no signage specifying the area was not supposed to be used for chipping. No, "excuse me sir" or "i'm sorry to bother you" or "im sorry for the inconvenience." Just stern tone and elevated voice.

Moments later, 25 minutes before my tee time, the same rude greeter/starter from before, grunts "are you ready to go the guys we had you paired with already took off." I politely said, " well I've hit about 10 chips and haven't even putt yet so no." It appeared he was disgruntled by this through his body language. Even though I had a scheduled tee time that I built my morning and round preparation around.

Once finished I hit the course. But before doing so the same obnoxious started says to me, "oh just so you know the course plays a lot longer that whats on the card." I'm old school and don't like to use range finders but there wasn't a single instance where the yardage wasn't off significantly from that depicted in the card. I had no idea how challenging it would be but I can certainly say anyone who has played the game and tries to play well knows that it takes a tremendous amount of focus to score well on a new and challenging course. I take responsibility that I couldn't get my mind off the ridiculous experience I had just had however I do believe that it is the greeting staffs' responsibility to create a warm and welcoming environment that allows golfers to relax and not be distracted from the task at hand. It is not their responsibility to make the game any harder with multiple distractions.

I will make this very clear unless you have very strong mental game you will struggle here. I give you my word, this was my first experience at this course and It will certainly be my last. Proceed with caution in membership or a summer public round.

Management I strongly suggest you take a good hard look at how your customer facing staff in golf or tennis areas are treating your patrons.

Extremely disappointed and if it weren't for the tremendous efforts of your greens staff my overall review would be 1 of 5 stars.

Great course, great staff, tee boxes need rolled and greens were very bouncy. Necessary for best conditions of course. Avoid early-mid June play unless your shooting for price to value in which case it's a great place to play. Very accessible off of I-4.