Tag Archives: golf vacation destinations

Northdale Golf and Tennis Club

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Tampa Bay and the whole of Florida are home to some of the country’s most beautiful and most sought after golf vacation destinations. It has the perfect weather, the best scenery, and a most unique and interesting natural terrain that makes golf more uniquely exciting than anywhere else in America. Most of these courses, though, only get to capture the first two and choose to rebuild the land. Only a few have perfectly put up a top quality course using Tampa Bay’s natural topography. Such is Northdale Golf and Tennis Club.

Its designer, Ron Garl, has this goal in mind when he built the course in 1977: to ‘artfully employ the unique characteristics of the natural terrain’. And this, he achieved. The Northdale Golf and Tennis Club features rolling terrains and contoured greens of USGA specifications. It plays 6,824 yards from the championship tees for a par of 72. Even after2 its most recent renovation, the principle of keeping the course as symmetrical to nature as possible was maintained. Large cypress trees, natural water features (playing on 11 of its 18 holes) and remolded bunkers all the more make the course interesting, thus making golf trips here memorable and beautiful.

As if that was not enough yet, the Northdale Golf and Tennis Club makes golf vacations even more wonderful, on top of being interesting with the best quality service and amenities anyone could ever want from a golf facility. It certainly has captured everything good about Florida golfing; no wonder it has captured the hearts of countless golfers from within and outside the Sunshine State too.

Westchase Golf Club

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Highly recognized, high ranking, and well praised – these are things that would perfectly describe the Westchase Golf Club in Tampa Bay, Florida. This Lloyd Clifton design is recognized by the National Golf Foundation and is a recipient of the CLASP (Customer Loyalty and Satisfaction) Award, raking in the Top Ten, nationally, and 1st in the state of Florida. As to why this is a favorite golf vacation destination, the reasons are quite obvious.

The Westchase Golf Club plays for a length of 6,710 yards from the longest tees, winding through a beautiful, scenic mess of wetlands, water hazards, lakes, and thick growth forests. Golfers have to meander through pines and wood bridges, and battle the tight fairways in theirquest for a low scoring game at the Westchase. The water hazards of this course – a combined natural and man-made spectacle – bring together both a picturesque and challenging layout. Regular customers and guests spending their golf vacations here sure find it very satisfying, that even big publications are recognizing it as well.

Golf Digest, for one, has given the Westchase Golf Club a high ranking and the Great Value award to boot. Very satisfied clients, too, have hailed this golf trip haven as “one of the most beautiful public access courses in Tampa Bay”. This is one golf course that has truly captured the hearts of the golfers from the player to the critic level – and that is standout in a state of over 2000 golf courses.

Lake Jovita Golf Club – South Course

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Visitors should expect something BIG from a masterpiece of two of the best names in the field of golf. Course designer Kurt Sandness is the President and principle owner of Sandness Design Group, an organization that is known for taking any size project from concept to successful completion. While Co-designer Tom Lehman, an award-winning golfer, has brought his experience of playing in countless golf courses to his design. The team up of these two talented course designers resulted to one of the finest golf vacation destinations in Florida, the Lake Jovita Golf Club – South Course.

Lake Jovita Golf Club – South Course is designed to create a golf course of professional quality tour. It is interwoven through valleys, lakes, ponds, hills, and lush vegetation that make it a premier golf destination. It has many strategically placed bunkers on most of its holes while water elements will test the patience as well as the skills of the players. Proper tactics and good course management skills are required to win over its tough holes. To take full advantage of the uniquely hilly terrain is also a key element to overcome the holes. A golf trip to this Sandness-Lehman-design course is indeed challenging but a rewarding feeling awaits them when they finish each hole.

Despite the difficulty and challenge, a golf vacation at Lake Jovita Golf Club – South Course also offers amusement to the guests through its amenities. Aside from its scenic environment, it also features a world-class practice facility and separate teaching tees for beginners. Visitors can stay at the owned three-bedroom, two-bath club villas that overlook the eighteenth green after a round of golf. May it be a professional golfer, or a beginner, the experience of playing in this course that is created by two of the biggest names in golf designing is one to remember.

World Woods Golf Club – Pine Barrens Course

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“Never be too intimidated, neither too relaxed.” This should be the mantra of every golfer who plays a round or two at the Pine Barrens Course of the World Woods Golf Club. This Tom Fazio design in Brooksville, Florida, is on a totally different level on layout and scenery both. And by “totally different level”, it means being ranked among “America’s Best Modern Courses” by no less the Golf Week Magazine. That sure does take golf vacations to epic new heights as well.

Measuring 6,458 yards, this golf vacation destination is a combination of naturally good surroundings and even better layout design. Fazio proved his unmatched genius with this creation carved out of thick Florida pine forests, hence the name. The Pine Barrens Course of the World Woods Golf Club features wide and rather wild waste bunkerings. On top of that, the course also features dramatic and surprising elevation changes, making low scoring a bit of a battle mentally and physically. Intimidating can be too much an understatement for the skill-challenged golfer.

Good to know, though, the Pine Barrens Course pf the World Woods Golf Club has a perfect way to counter the drama. Its beautiful Florida surroundings give the golfers a retreat, a room to breathe. That, and the many world class amenities of the club will surely make frequent golf trips out of any golfer’s first. Just as this course is a balance of beauty and thrill, golfers will have to bring some skill to counter the intimidation, and the course will take care of the relaxation.

PGA Golf Club – Wanamaker Course

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Tom Fazio must have borne the burden of having to design a course named after Rodman Wanamaker. For the uninitiated, Wanamaker is a total stranger. But to the golf historian, aficionado, and the true lover of the sport, Rodman Wanamaker’s name is synonymous to the PGA of America, as he inspired its birth in 1916. He is THAT much of a personality in the sport. The fact that the PGA Golf Club – Wanamaker Course is the FIRST golf course to be named after the legend doubles the burden for the designer. But the genius that Fazio is created one of the most beautiful and most admired golf vacation destinations in the entire Florida.

Along with the Ryder and Dye courses, the PGA Golf Club – Wanamaker Course make up the courses in the PGA Golf Village in Port St. Lucie, Florida. The Wanamaker measures 7,102 yards from the longest tees, playing for a par of 72. It is often described as a classic Florida layout, with wetlands, palms and palmettos playing in the backgrounds. Apart from being listed amongst the most beautiful, this golf vacation haven also makes it to the most challenging. With tight and tilted fairways, intimidating approaches, heavily guarded greens and massive beach bunkers, on top of all its water hazards, the 18-hole course is sure to make its guests’ hearts skip a beat or two.

Because of the wonderful quality of its layout and scenery, the PGA Golf Club – Wanamaker Course is also a favorite host of many tournaments, including 2003 PGA Cup, Callaway Golf Senior PGA National Professional Championships – among many others – in its list of “achievements”. Fazio not only carried the burden; he carried the burden well and actually delivered a golf trip destination worthy of its namesake.

Champions Club at Julington Creek

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Julington Creek Plantation is a scenic private resort community in Jacksonville, Florida. To many, it is “just among the many”. Jacksonville, after all, is a golfing city. But to the avid golfers, Julington Creek is actually the home of one of Jacksonville’s most unique golf vacation destinations: the Champions Club at Julington Creek.

Designed and owned by PGA Tour Player Steve Melvyk, the Champions Club at Julington Creek first opened in 1988 as a 9-hole facility. In 1992, it was expanded to become a full 18-hole golf vacation paradise, measuring 6,908 yards from the gold tees, playing for a par of 72. Like most other golf courses in Northern Florida, it meanders through natural wetlands and an outgrowth of trees native to the Florida landscape. The presence of these natural hazards and several stunning lakes on course along with bunkers all make the course visually appealing and challenging for golfers of all skill levels.

The best features of this course are its perfectly manicured tees and greens, and the elegant Spanish Colonial clubhouse. Because of its excellence in layout quality and scenery, the Champions Club at Julington Creek is a favorite not only for golf trips but for golf tournaments as well. It has been the host of the Hooters Tour Jacksonville Open three years in a row (’96,’97, ’98) and the venue for the World Junior Championship Finals in 1997. With an in-house golf course as excellent as this, Julington Creek Plantation can now be easily singled out from the many golfing communities in Jacksonville; it simply stands out.

Slammer and Squire Golf Course

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The World Golf Village in Jacksonville, Fl. is one of the most – if not the most – prestigious golf vacation destinations in North America not only in concept, but in everything. It is home to the World Golf Hall of Fame, and a 36-hole golfing facility bearing the names of no less than certified Hall of Famers. One of its two championship courses, the Slammer and Squire Golf Course was designed by Bobby Weed with Hall of Famers Sam “the Slammer” Snead and Gene “the Squire” Sarazen as consultants after whom the course was named.

The Slammer and Squire Golf Course debuted in May of 1998 and features generous fairways, contoured greens, some heart-wrenching water hazards and the most impressive views of the Golf Hall of Fame, backed by a most golf-perfect weather courtesy of Florida’s climate. The front nine of this 18-hole championship spectacle features a more treelined fairway, while the back nine is water-defined. The golf vacation favorite plays 6,939 yards from the longest tees, for a par of 72.

To say that the Slammer and Squire Golf Course is superb is saying the least. It is a hotspot not only for golf trips but for some of the biggest golfing events in Florida as well, including the Liberty Mutual Legends of Golf (A Senior PGA Tour Event) and the Handa Cup. Well put together, this course and its sibling course, the King and Bear (a Palmer/Nicklaus creation), and everything else on site spell PRESTIGE like a perfect golf swing for the World Golf Village.

Bonaventure Country Club – East Course

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Numbers are never a guarantee of full satisfaction. Not size, not quantity. It’s always a matter of quality. A golf resort may have at least a hundred courses in it but that does not come with a full guarantee of golfing paradise. Not if none of the ten courses are of championship caliber. Many other golf vacation destinations are bigger than the Bonaventure Country Club in Florida’s Fort Lauderdale county, but its two top courses are enough reasons to make this a magnanimous golf paradise. The East Course of the Bonaventure Country Club alone is extravagant, and it’s not just on size.

With a whooping size of 7,158 yards from the longest tees, with a par of 72, the Joe Lee design is huge – a good thousand yards bigger than its sibling West. The East Course of the Bonaventure Country Club is hailed as among Florida’s top ten courses with its signature combination of challenging golf, verdant tropical foliage, and its breathtaking scenery. The holes of the East course wind through mature palms, hardwoods, numerous water hazards, and some expansive bunkers that combine to make the course as beautiful as it is difficult. Its signature attraction is the third hole waterfall that gave this golf vacation haven the monicker, “The Cascades” Course.

The East Course of the Bonaventure Country Club is a traditional Florida layout that makes the most out of the Sunshine State’s tropical goodness. Together with the West course, they make the ideal Florida golf trip. And if golfers were to give this getaway a score, the numbers would never be less than stellar – and that’s a guarantee.

The Links at Spanish Bay Golf Club

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Andy Warhol definitely knew what he was talking about when he said “One’s Company, Two is a Crowd, Three is a Party”. Looking at the Links at Spanish Bay Golf Club, the three geniuses Robert Trent Jones Sr, Tom Watson and Sandy Tatum must have had a fabulous time creating one of the best golf vacation destinations in America. They brought together what golf was truly about when it started half a millennium ago in the sandy links of Scotland.

The Links at Spanish Bay Golf Club was intended to mirror Scottish links golf right at Pebble Beach, and there is not an iota of doubt: IT DELIVERED. It may take two to tango but it took three of the greatest minds in golf to bring an authentic Scottish golf vacation right in sunny California. The three creators of the Links have made the rugged coastline of Monterey and its sandy seaside links a perfect replica of Scottish golfing. Golfers have to battle the constant blowing of the wind, the hole placement, and even the breathtakingly magical view of the Pacific Ocean for these elements perfectly mesh with each other to make games as exciting as they are beautiful.

The most Scottish, perhaps, about the Links at Spanish Bay Golf Club, is found not at the links, not at the holes, nor anywhere on this par-72, 6,821 Scottish golf trip treat at daytime, but only at SUNDOWN. A bagpiper, yes a real one, closes the golf course at the end of the day EVERYDAY. Right from the opening of the course, down to the closing, there is much reason to believe that the three designers were having such a jolly good time creating the Links, it reflects on the happy moods of every one of its guests.

Salt Creek Golf Course

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In a county like San Diego, where golf courses are just a little over a dime a dozen, how certain courses manage to stand out is a huge feat. The requirements are not necessarily easy. These golf vacation destinations have to have heaven on their side, with a good helping of well-placed holes and an even greater scenery around it, to make it to this elite list of San Diego’s best. Fortunately for Salt Creek Golf Course, it has constantly ranked among the top ones – and has a great probability of staying there for a long, long time.

One reason why the Salt Creek Golf Course is a standout is because it is the only Scottish links style course in the area. It is bordered on almost all sides by natural wetlands and overshadowed by the majestic Mt Miguel. Its interesting terrain was optimized by its designers, John Cook and Carl Bickler, to provide a golf layout that goes beyond fun and relaxing but push the golfers to the best of their abilities. The 18-hole, par-72 golf vacation favorite measures 6,588 yards from the back tees, with no homes in sight, thus giving golfers an untarnished view of the beautiful surroundings – including an overview of the Pacific ocean.

To say that golfers prefer the Salt Creek Golf Course for their SoCal golf trips because of its challenging layout and stunning scenery is pointing out the obvious and saying the least. The other amenities on the course are equally noteworthy: the practice and chipping greens are excellent and maintained to perfection (as are everything else on the facility), and the services are nothing short of world-class. It is not surprising at all why it is among Southern California’s Top 50 courses, and ranked among the top places to play.