The $52 greens fee is the lowest I’ve paid to play golf during peak season in Florida. It does come with some drawbacks such as thin lies, bare spots, and bunkers with too little or too much sand, but a good set of greens cures a lot of ills. Many of my snowbird friends don’t play golf down here because it’s too expensive so a place like Champion Turf Club is a local gem.
There’s many good qualities at CTC starting with the wide playing corridors. Some of the holes dogleg giving the player options on how aggressive to be. A couple par fives illustrated this the most with bunkers lining the curve of the fairway. The par threes are all solid. I particularly like the back nine with its 4-5-3-5-3-4-5-3-4 sequence. A lot of fireworks can be had on this side.
(Notice how the green is quiet while the bunker and mounding is eye catching. A low running shot seems like the prudent play.)
(The 194/176 yard par three fourth is nicely positioned with sand short and right. The green is crowned on the left so balls funnel off leaving a testy chip.)
(Don’t be fooled by the gunk short of the green. There’s twenty yards of fairway to play with for a front pin. The 204/171 yard par three ninth simply asks you not to go right.)
The golf course was renovated by Champion Turf Farm out of Bay City Texas. There are swatches of grass being cultivated on the back nine. This hopefully means that some of the conditioning woes will be rectified in the future. All in all, I think it’s a decent track. When I commented about the price at the range, the guy next to me shushed me and said not to say it too loud. I appreciate the sentiment. I give it a 4 (above average)(worth driving 30-45 minutes to play).
(The 467/427 yard par four tenth is the most difficult hole on the course. It’s a tough driving hole followed by a green fronted by a deep bunker. A four is a really good score.)
(The 488/446 yard par five eleventh is basically a long par four. The cavernous bunker short right is its only defense. Note how the putting surface is elevated enough to be hidden from view. The pin in picture is all the way back right of the green. Go long and you bring the water into play.)
(The fifteenth is a 395/345 par four. As this picture shows, there’s plenty of width, very few trees, and enough hazards to make it interesting.)
(We played the white tees at 5,987 yards. The gentlemen I played with really needed a combo tee since their length overwhelmed most of the holes. This course pushes the “play it forward” objective with the goal of getting people around quickly. We had a ton of birdies, excluding myself, with most of them coming on par fours. Besides eleven, the par fives were not so easy. Trevor had a great 74 with five birdies.)
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