Course - Rank
15 - TPC Sawgrass - Player's Stadium Course
77 - Arnold Palmer's Bay Hill Club - Orlando, FL
NR - ChampionsGate Golf Club
NR - Celebration Golf Club
NR - Ocean Links Golf Course @ Amelia Island, FL 
NR - Long Point Golf Course @ Amelia Island, FL
NR - TPC Sawgrass - Dye Valley Course

2011 PHOTOS

     (Written by Jim Allen) ... Golfest 2011-Florida "The Sequel" represented our eighth annual big golf adventure. And unlike all the previous editions, it returned to a previous Golfest destination. So what we did was hit the rewind button to 2010, pull out a couple of the best segments, and then bolt on some new components for the 2011 version. Call it part deja vu, part new experience, but all pure golf trip that was viewed with a lot of anticipation and interest. A dozen golfers took the challenge and the good news is that the May 24-31st road show lived up to the hype. Florida dished up some high quality weather and 126 quality golf holes. It was interesting, entertaining, competitive and downright enjoyable. If you hit the rewind button, this is how it panned out:

      (5/24) - Travel Day - They say if you are proactive, do your homework and plan extensively, fifty-percent of your activities can go bad and you can still end up with a good final product. It also helps when you surround yourself with good people. Golfest was improvising on the fly when we found out on our Las Vegas layover that our planned Shingle Creek Golf Club opener needed to be changed. Our travel agent extroidenaires … Golf Exclusives and Worldwide Golf Vacations … discovered while confirming our tee times that Shingle Creek decided to move up their aeration schedule by a week. Wouldn't that have been a bummer to find that out the hard way? Get all whipped into a frenzy, travel across the country, only to discover a golf course that looked like a war zone. Instead we were rebooked at the National Course at ChampionsGate just five-miles from our original site. This one falls into the proactive category!

     Yesterday, we made another change with a last minute golfer substitution. Tony Lopez was forced to drop out to care for his roommate/brother who got in a violent car accident that morning. That prompted a "pinch me I'm dreaming" phone call and invitation to Mark Suzda at around 4:00 p.m. Ironically, Mark lost out on going to Golfest 2010-Florida when his sister passed away the night before departure. A last minute scramble for a SWA ticket had Mark frantically loading his bags - even if his flight required a sidebar connecting trip to Pittsburgh.  But you know what?  He didn't care.  He was happy to make the trip and already has his sights set on TPC Sawgrass.

     Speaking of sidebar, Todd Baltzley and Golfest rookie Chet Dodson took the words "warm-up" to a whole new level. Using the premise that it was the only way they could cash in some flight coupons, they arrived in Orlando four days earlier. I'll have to remember that one and it will work unless my wife reads this first. Todd and Chet ended up "warming up" with 36-holes at Hunters Creek Golf Club, 26-holes (it got dark) at the Magnolia Plantation Golf Club, 27-holes at Royal St. Cloud … (take a breath here) … plus 18 at the Kissimee Golf Course, and a final 18 at Dubsdread Golf Club. If we both took the same third grade math class, that adds up to 125-holes - a trip onto itself! Those two boys would eventually leave the Sunshine State with more than 274 golf holes under their belt. There is a fine line between passion and an addiction. We'll call this one an addictive golf passion!

     (5/25) - ChampionsGate Golf Club/National Course & Celebration Golf Club -Celebration, FL - The mini-vans were rolling out of the Springhill Suites parking lot before the crack of dawn (that's 3:00 a.m. PST) and everybody was bouncing around like they just had pure adrenalin milkshake. Anticipation will do that type of thing. Speaking of mini-vans, you ..., like me ..., have probably made fun of them with a fair share of soccer mom jokes. But to be honest, they absolutely rock in a four person per van golf trip. Lots of room to throw and go -- throw in your stuff in and go!

     After a quick breakfast in the ChampionsGate Clubhouse, all headed to the range to work out any last minute swing nuances they accidentally brought on the trip. With the exception of a couple of holes, this Greg Norman design was pretty much a wide open affair.  It's a Florida resort course that while very nice from a conditioning standpoint, lacked what can best be described as "personality."  There were no distinguishable landmarks or traits that made it stand out from any other course on the face of the earth.  In reality, it could have been located just about anywhere and been called a muni-course.  However, it was stroke friendly with many posting what would be their best scorecards of the week. Mike Rittner lit it up with a 79, despite a five-over par blow up on the final two-holes. That's typically what happens when you start adding up your scorecard before the round is over.  Jeffrey Adkins posted a 21-handicap crushing 81 because he couldn't do anything wrong -- drives in the heart of the fairway and some crisp iron shots.  Jim Allen (yes … JIm Allen) won the long drive award and Mark Suzda went pin seeking to win the closest to the pin money.

     Once completed, we caravanned over to the Celebration Golf Club.  Rumor had it that you could pick up our bright purple shirts on local Doppler radar. The staff at the course was very accommodating and the service was over the top.  So was the clubhouse and surroundings which made it a pretty cool place to hang out.  It had a Disney feel to it.  This course featured water on just about every hole and even offered up a few gator sightings.  Coincidentally, their driving range features floating green islands in a big lake, complete with -- gator sightings.  Throw in undulating greens and some forced carries and the overall scores nudged up a few strokes from this morning.  Everybody agreed that the Celebration course was "more our style."  Overall, there was 10 birdies today, with Rittner and Jim Dee each scoring three.  There were also three near misses in the hole-in-one category, with three iron shots hitting the flagstick and rolling away.

     Dinner's tended to be of the drive-thru or cold pizza variety as immediate calorie intake was deemed more important than waiting for a local restaurant to　dial up a steak.  Yes, that was Chet Dodson limping around, featuring blisters on both of his feet, most of it blamed on his extensive "warm up" rounds.  Other casualties were Mike Barbone's lost Maui Jim sunglasses, and some unnamed Golfestians who decided to test their alcohol intake capabilities on their kidneys last night.  The good news is that we get to sleep in tomorrow.  We don't tee off at Arnold Palmer's Bay Hill Club until 1:00 p.m.!

     (5/26) - Arnold Palmer's Bay Hill Club - Orlando, FL - The Bay Hill Club is part golf　experience, part resort, and part museum.　 Even a non-golfer would know within seconds that this is Arnold's place ... and we're not talking about the former "Govenator" of California.  We're talking about Mr. Palmer himself.  We managed to arrive early and casually killed a couple of hours before heading to the first tee box. We were presented with a special 50th anniversary Bay Hill Club pin upon check-in, which was a nice collector's item. It was seen pinned on our shirts the rest of the week.

     Unlike the courses of yesterday, Bay Hill played about 400 yards longer and was more intimidating.  Many of Arnold's greens are extensively protected by bunkers, putting extra emphasis on pin point accuracy.　 You either bounced it up to the green through a small gap between hazards, or you flew it in. How the pros do that with a four-iron amazes me. Some Golfestian's (who we will leave unnamed to protect the guilty) spent more time in the sand than the average family of four would on a Hawaiian vacation.  We joked that our caddy was considering a legitimate workers comp claim for "rakers-elbow."

     But seriously, we all had a good time and continue ... (MORE) ...