The Monarch at Royal Highlands, Leesburg, Florida

 

I found The Monarch at Royal Highlands through an online discount golf website.  Located about ten miles south of Leesburg, Florida, The Monarch is about a 30 minute drive from The Villages.  The golf course is located within a gated community in a pastoral setting.  You'll drive about a mile back into the complex to get to the clubhouse.  I had made tee times online on a Wednesday, which turned out to be the golf course's shotgun start day.  Every twosome/foursome was assigned a hole to tee off upon, and our starting time was set at 1PM; we waited in the parking lot until a horn sounded and then everyone took off.  Of course, the people that live in the community were familiar with this set up and knew where they were going.  The pro shop was kind enough to give us a map of the golf course with all the tee boxes circled and numbered so we had an idea of where we would be starting (on the 11th tee) and a bit about how the holes were set up.  We were assigned another couple as a foursome, but when we arrived at the tee no one came up with us and the other teams were starting to hit so off Denny and I went with no clue of where to hit but pleased with the general layout and condition of this golf course.

The Monarch is a decent length, measuring 6,141 yards from the Tiger (black) tees with a slope/rating of 119/68.9.  The men's/ladies challenge (gold) tees measure in at 5,477 yards with a slope/rating of 111/66.5, while the master (green) tees are placed at 5,131 yards with a slope/rating of 102/65.2 and finally the ladies classic tees (silver) measure in at 4,291 yards with a slope/rating of 98/64.7.  The course includes a hole with a double dog leg, plenty of sand and waste bunkers, nice landscaping and a few hills and ponds thrown in for good measure.  And it was fun.  Pace of play in this format was a brisk 3 1/2 hours to play 18 holes which is terrific for Florida in the winter.

 10th hole.

 15th hole.

Water hazard, no extra charge for the sleeping alligator.

 We paid just under $25 each to play this course, having to pre-pay online with no refunds for cancellations unless the entire golf course closed down due to bad weather.  Denny and I thoroughly enjoyed ourselves on this course and would definitely play it again.

Water Oak Country Club, Lady Lake, Florida

 
Hello again!  It's been a while.  Denny and I landed in The Villages, Florida, hanging up the keys to our RV and settling in to the land of golf nirvana.  Here in The Villages, we are privy to eleven country club golf courses and 32 executive golf courses.  The executive courses we play for free, but in the winter season the rates on the championship courses go up so Denny and I have traveled outside of the town limits to play some golf.

Water Oak Country Club is located with a 55+ manufactured home community but the golf course is open to the public.  The golf course is older and is currently in fairly rough condition, but it's also kind of fun.  Water Oak is a shorter eighteen hole golf course, measuring 5,944 yards from the blue tees, 5,704 yards from the white tees and 4,758 yards from the red tees.  The first two fairways are quite narrow, being lined with stately live oak trees and there are a surprising number of elevation changes for this area of Florida (which is pretty darned flat.)  Water comes into play on several holes, so the challenge of the course comes from where you are able to hit the ball to avoid trouble.  

 Between 11 AM and 2 PM you'll currently pay $22 for a round of golf and a riding cart.  That's hard to beat.  There's a small pro shop with some very reasonably priced golf merchandise, a restaurant that offers breakfast and lunch and a bunch of friendly folks out on the golf course.  That's not a bad deal.

Halifax Plantation Golf Club, Ormond Beach, FL

I decided to make a tee time at the Halifax Plantation Golf Club not only because it was one of the least expensive golf courses in the area but because it was only about three miles away from our campground at Bulow Plantation RV Resort.  Handy, that.  As with most golf course nowadays, you can register your email at the Halifax Plantation Golf Club website to get emails with special rates and offers, but I chose to go with the standard winter time rate for Denny.  With tax, it cost just a tad over $38 for Denny to play eighteen holes of golf with a riding cart and there was no fee for me to ride along.  That's right, I'm still not able to play golf and this is yet another course that I would have loved to play.

Halifax Plantation Golf Course has an interesting layout--the two nines are each laid out in a circular pattern so you don't see other golfers or other fairways.  Looking at the map of the layout on the back of your scorecard, the golf course sort of looks like the front of a pair of eyeglasses; two round lenses with the "nose piece" being the clubhouse/pro shop/range.  This layout makes for a quiet round and a peaceful one because you feel like you're out there all by yourself.  For some reason (perhaps because it was a very chilly, breezy day) we didn't catch up to any other golfers until about the fourteenth hole, which is surprising for a Florida golf course.

As you can see by the photographs, the fairways are very wide, the greens are huge compared to most and the golf course is in very good condition.  There was a sprinkling of a strange dark gray sand on the greens, but that simply slowed the golf ball down a tad, much like a heavy dew.  There were very few ball marks on the greens and most golfers seemed to make use of the sand provided on the golf carts to fill in divot marks on the fairways.  Something I did find a bit surprising was the lack of water on any of the holes; only the par 3 thirteenth hole had a pond on either side of it.  Trees on the golf course were fairly widely spaced so you could shoot out from underneath them.  Basically it's a nice course for an easy round of golf.

There are five sets of tees; black, blue white, gold and red.  Yardage for the black tees is 7099 yards with a rating/slope of 74.0/130.  Blue tees' yardage is 6633 with a rating/slope of 71.9/126.  White tees' yardage is 6149 with the rating/slope of 69.4/122, the yellow tees' yardage is 5594 with a rating/slope of 66.7/115 and the red tees' yardage is 4888 with a rating/slope of 67.4/114.  Denny played with a pair of women who played off the yellow tees and had no difficulty playing bogey golf at that distance.  Of course, these gals tried to play golf every other day or so while they were visiting Florida so they weren't duffers to begin with.

Lining the tee boxes on many holes were large formations of coquina rock.  this one reminded me of a dragon's head.  The houses lining the fairways are set back at a distance, most have trees in front of them and they really don't factor into play at all unless you hit a truly errant shot.  And yes, Denny did manage to hit a roof or screened room on one shot.  I think it's mandatory for him on golf courses that are surrounded by homes.

The staff is friendly here, the prices are reasonable and the course is a fun one to play.  That's what a day of playing golf should be.

A Lovely Day at Legends Golf Course

After waiting two longs weeks for my strained muscle in my back to stop seizing up whenever I bent over, I finally felt loose enough to try swinging a golf club again. We chose the Legends Golf and Country Club, 1700 Legendary Blvd, Clermont, Florida (352) 243-1118 for our outing since we were able to play for $29.00 plus tax each after twelve noon, down from $35 + in the morning. And since it turned out to be a very cool day, having an afternoon tee time allowed the sun to take a tiny bit of the chill off the air.

Run as a country club the pro shop doesn't allow any jeans/jorts (jean shorts) or collarless shirts and you can't drive the golf carts into the parking lot. There are bag boys to assist you with your bag at the bag drop off and they will put your head covers back on after cleaning off your clubs at the end of your round--always a nice touch. We started off at the tenth hold and had only a threesome behind us for the first two holes and then they dropped well back so Denny and I felt no urgency to rush our play which is always nice and makes for better scoring for both of us. Denny played the blue tees (white at most courses) for a total yardage of 6491 with a slope/rating of 71.1/125. I played the purple (red) tee for a yardage of 4859 and a slope/rating of 68/108.

While the golf course itself is set within a housing development, the fairways are fairly wide in the areas of the homes although the houses can come into play with an errant shot. There are ponds to play around and over, lots of sand traps and the greens are can be tricky as many have slopes and shelves that don't have anywhere near as much break as they appear. Be forewarned!

The only time you'll hear any noise is when you are playing the two holes near Hwy 27, otherwise you'll play the course in near silence, at least at this time of year. The golf course is fairly well maintained although some folks were a bit remiss in taking care of their ball marks on the greens. I think when we come back to the area in two weeks we'll probably come back to this course to play again rather than look elsewhere, although there are certainly other courses that are also within a ten mile radius of the campground. I just played the course so well I'd like to try to do it again!