Marc & Jason Vs. Lake Orlando Golf Club

Yesterday afternoon, Marc and I had a strong urge to hit the course (need to release some aggravation.) Marc and I were to meet a referral source in Orlando, but due to unusual circumstances the meeting was cancelled. I did some homework and found a course that bumped their twilight rates to 2PM. ($20/person/round... not bad considering we were thinking of getting an early round in that would have cost over $50/person/round.)

Well, we ended up getting to the course 1 hour late... really bad accident on I-4. All lanes blocked, life rescue helicopter brought, that kind of bad accident. Well, we finally got to the course and started play. We were excited to get on a real 72 par course after our little tournament the other week on the par 3 course (Please see law #2). Before we even got to our second shot on the first hole, we were already in a foul mood. Play ahead of us was going very slow. A father was teaching his 2 children how to play and was jumping all over the course. This held everyone in front of us up and behind us. Now, the urge to hit something got even greater.

Enough of our mood to play, let's talk about the course. For a semi-private course, I would have guessed by the maintenance that this was a municipal course. The fairways were terrible. The greens had weeds and looked like they had not been cut in weeks. There was debris everywhere. And the layout of one hole to the next was terrible. Going from the 3rd hole to the 4th tee took over two minutes just to get there. Now, there were some challenging holes on the course. The 3rd hole is their "signature hole," a par 3. Hitting from the blues, you have to carry about 175 yards over water to a green guarded by bunkers on all sides. Funny thing is that the 11 hole is almost identical to the 3rd.

Okay, so I bad mouthed this course... what was I going to expect for $20 in season. We should have known better. Let's cover those laws that I mentioned in a previous post. On the 10 hole, Marc personally got to witness law #9, the golf ball eating palm trees. Personally, we were glad the palm tree ate the ball. If not, it would have been in someone's house. When we approached the tree, we saw that Marc's ball was not the only one to suffer the fate of being consumed. There were probably another 5-6 balls stuck in the fronds of the tree. Too bad it was too tall for us to climb up and get. (Wish I had my camera to capture this moment.)

We managed to loose only one ball to the palm trees, but laws #3 and #4 sure hit us hard. By the time we made the turn, we lost probably close to 10 balls to the water or to the woods. (We left the balls in the woods alone, Jeff. Did not need or want to walk in on someone.) :) We were using our company logo Nike balls on the front nine. When we made the turn, we stopped by the pro shop and purchased some cheap balls. Again, we proved #3... We lost fewer of the cheap balls on the back nine.

In the end, we had a lot of fun. If you want to know the scores, match play was a tie and stroke play was won by me by 2. By the time we reached the 18th (which ended up being the 10th for us because there was a group of 6 still teeing off on the 18th) it was near pitch dark. We decided the final hole by dropping the ball about 20 yards off the green and seeing who could get in the hole in fewer strokes. I think we tried this 3-4 times before the hole was finally won.

If I were to rate this course on a scale of 1-5 with 5 being best, I would give the course a 2.5. There is much room for improvement for this course. It is not old, designed in 1999, but needs a huge makeover. But for the cost, it is worth it to play on during the season when everyone else is more than double the price. For more info on this course, please visit http://www.golflakeorlando.com/.

I will add pictures the next time we go to play, as I will make sure that I take the camera.