mestvanic

Even on a cold, windy day, Rawiga shines!. If you’re willing to make a drive out from the city, you’ll be rewarded by a beautiful, well-maintained course. It’s an old school course which combines thoughtful golf architecture with a fantastic piece of ground. The greens are severe enough to penalize bad approaches, and roll fast but true. In the summer when the course is firm, shooting in the 70’s is a real achievement - even for a scratch golfer.

I play this place a few times a year, and if I lived closer I’d become a member and play it every day.

I was blown away by this golf course. Friendly staff, great price point, good practice facility - and the golf course is tremendous. I played on a hot, dry day and the fast, firm, turtle-back greens were INCREDIBLE, and incredibly evil. Whoever designed and built this course was an artist. They created challenging, sometimes thrilling golf holes and shot values on an unspectacular piece of land. The holes on the outer portions of the property (near farmland) are all just joyful to play. I really liked the challenging yet natural design where shot values are derived from enhancing the natural features of the land - not by using a bulldozer.

My only suggestion is that there are several pine trees near greens. This leads to poor turf quality in green surrounds. If someone ever removed about 150 pine trees from this place, it’d not only be better - but you’d have golf dorks from all over the country raving about it.

Don’t tell anyone - this place is effortlessly, naturally GREAT.

This is a poor course on several fronts. Their website touts that 400 trees were planted during the course’s construction, but they’d be well-served to remove at least 300 of those in order to improve the turf conditions, which (even given the price point) are shockingly bad. Many greens are diseased with crabgrass infestation gone rampant in the green surrounds, fairways are noticeably bare, and green speeds/conditions vary WILDLY from hole to hole. The paddock of holes east of Auburn Road near the clubhouse, 6-7-8-9, are in especially poor shape - the routing and design of these holes is poor as well; this section of the course needs to be renovated so that conditions aren’t so dissimilar to the holes on the other side of the road. Tree removal, better turf management, and a redesign of holes 6-9 need to happen before I’d consider making a second visit.

The fairways and tee boxes are a little rough, the greens were true but slow. The course layout is just quirky enough to keep a good player somewhat engaged, but playable enough for beginners and higher handicaps. A good value and convenient access from the freeway. I’ll be back the next time I need to knock some rust off or work on some swing changes - which is why I was there today.

Beautiful, natural golf course on a great piece of property. Major tree removal is needed, but the shot value is here for a scratch or a hack. I’ll play this course again…

They are really bringing up conditions. The course was firm and fast, and the putting surfaces were good. The front part of the property (holes 1-9, 17, & 18) contains some bland, but holes 10-16 are a truly thrilling stretch of golf through rolling, wooded, tight terrain where accuracy and distance are required to score. If they could find a way to redesign most of the holes on the front of the property, this course could go from an improving value course to a true gem.

Interesting track. Run of the mill Florida layout which takes driver out of a better player’s hands. Interesting green complexes and surrounds. The paspalum overseed of the greens will be good for the course once it fully is finished, but the greens are ROCK HARD and fast right now. Balls hit with a lot of spin take a big first bounce then zip hard! Over time the greens will soften and slow down, allowing the hearty paspalum to keep bare spots off the greens. For the money, this course is an EXCELLENT value. Now my go-to ‘knock the rust off’ spot when I make my yearly SWFL trip.

I’ve played this course 4 times this summer and fallen in love with it. Great layout on this shotmaker’s course with fantastic greens. My only issues are 3 holes on the back... 10 is so dry and burned out that half the green on this long par 4 cannot be hit onto because it’s concrete, and the whole area around the same hole is concrete/bare grass where there should be a collection area and rough....it makes a long/medium iron shot impossible. Then on 11, they need to remove/trim back some trees which can make the hole unplayable, especially for lefties. 17 is a ‘golf in a hallway’ hole with overgrown trees which needs a rethink - possibly cutting back trees and changing/updating the green complex to defend it, otherwise a decent player can just hit two 9 irons and make birdie, like I did today. LOVE this course...and if you fix those 3 holes it goes from a B+ to an A/A+ course. A true gem!

Booked my tee time through GolfNow, then called to add my father, who is a senior, to my grouping. Explained to the booker that my wife is 36 weeks pregnant, so I prefer to not play with strangers to limit COVID exposure. She said it would not be a problem for us to go off as a twosome.

When my Dad got to the course, they charged him a senior rate and a DOUBLE cart fee, telling him that my online booking doesn’t include a cart fee (which is incorrect) and being rude about it. Still, Pops paid almost 50 dollars...

Then the starter informed us that my Dad and I would be going off in separate groups. I explained to him that I had spoken to someone when booking the tee time and was assured my Dad and I would be going off together as a twosome. The starter got an attitude, so to calm/fix the situation I explained that my wife is heavily pregnant and I am trying to limit exposure and that the booker assured us that it wouldn’t be a problem, to which he said “WHAT DO YOU WANT? THIS IS A GOLF COURSE. WE ARE JAMMED WITH TEE TIMES.”

I then assented to going off as a twosome, and when he came back to tell us that the other two of the foursome cancelled anyway, I told him, “Listen, I wasn’t trying to be difficult, but my wife is very pregnant and I’m concerned for my family.” He replied by saying, “We’re a golf course, we can’t help that you’re wife’s pregnant.” WOW - so I took a deep breath...

So after all the rudeness and overcharging, it was time to hit the course. Well - they had overbooked leagues and tee times, and golfers were not keeping pace of play. So it took us 4.5 hours to play 13 holes! At that point, my Dad and I were both mentally fried from the slow pace and the mistreatment by staff and I said, “Enough’s enough - I’m done; I’ll go in and say something...”

But when I got in the clubhouse, I waited more than 5 minutes and nobody showed up to help me. So, I went on GolfNow and figured I’d share my experience.

This is a pretty golf course where you can really score — just don’t expect them to be courteous, organized, maintain pace of play, and act respectably.

What a joke. I’ll never spend another DIME here, and I’ll be sharing my experience with friends and fellow golfers.