GolfestOnline.com
A Quest to Play the Top 100 Public Golf Courses in the United States
A Quest to Play the Top 100 Public Golf Courses
(CONT'D) .. for Golfest 2011 supporters is in full gear. If you are interested, fire us off an e-mail. Also look for updated golfer profile pages during the next month or so! They are getting a facelift. ... Golfestian Mike Rittner had what he hoped was his only "blow-up" round of the year at an un-named course, shooting a score more reminiscent of a summer temperature at Death Valley. He thought about retiring his clubs, but snapped out of it five-minutes later. ... Mark Suzda With four par-3's on each of the seven courses on the trip, our group will have 392 chances to score an ace. And the group is due! The last one came when Mark Suzda two-hopped it in the hole at the 17th hole at Kiawah Island during Golfest 2005. The EMERGENCY ROOM: When laying out golf trips, the words "emergency room" is typically not used in the planning process. And the term "choker" is usually reserved for The UNPREDICTABLE: If it's unusual and can possibly take place on a golf course, it will probably happen on a Golfest trip. Little things like five-putting to lose a play-off, including four putts from within four feet. Or a unique full-contact discussion between The SIDESHOW: It's a guarantee that our group will have a great time on the course. It's just what happens when you put a group of golfers with a wide differential of handicaps together. Throw in a few beers and mixed drinks, some Attention Deficit This 2010 trip has scheduled side trips to the Murray Brothers restaurant CADDYSHACK, an afternoon at the World Golf Hall of Fame, a putting tournament on their 18-hole putting course, and an awards dinner at the award winning Atlantic Grill at Ocean Hammock. And probably a few unscheduled ones! Let the games begin! Now that's may be the view from your current seat. However, when you dig in, this trip has more pop than my Cobra driver with a 75-mile per hour tailwind. This Florida adventure features 145 of the finest golf holes in the country, all wrapped up in the aura of Florida sunshine, a plethora of palm trees and an assortment of predatory alligators. Let's review a few pages of the script ... Reunion Resort & Golf Club - Legacy Course Arnold Palmer's Bay Hill Club & Lodge TPC Sawgrass -Stadium Course 
and I made a trip to Temecula, CA to play the Pechanga Casino's much-hyped Journey Course on July 6th. It was a pretty cool course that is cut into the hills in the back of the casino and required some decent shot making just to salvage bogeys. The greens were smooth as glass, but rolled true. One tee box featured a 80-foot drop to the fairway below. And here is another feature that really made it different ... the course had seven-miles of cart path. As the course cut through some of the higher elevations, it got pretty tight ... tight to the point where the cart path had to be routed away from the golf hole by as much as 50-yards, to get back to the fairway or green. It was a good day and a scenic drive. ...
... Rumor has it that Jeffrey Adkins is headed to Maui in a couple of weeks. That means there will be at least one excursion to the Kapalua Plantation Course. Look for his posts on Facebook. Jeffrey and son Jake were sighted at the North Course at Pelican Hill recently. ... Speaking of Adkins, Bob Potts has been on a mission since his final Golfest round at Ocean Hammock. He has lost 24 pounds on the Adkins diet. Bob has been golfing a lot lately also. ... Art Taylor, Todd Baltzley,John Lundgren and I got out at Whitney Oaks in Rocklin, CA three Saturdays ago. I lived in Sacramento for 25-years and never even knew the course was there.
.
(Updated 5/21/10 - 10:23 p.m. - Written by Jim Allen) ... OKAY ... the big highly anticipated golf trip is just around the corner - which means there is no better time than now to bring you the ... "TOP FIVE THINGS TO LOOK FOR (or be aware of) ON GOLFEST 2010 - FLORIDA!"
The CHALLENGE: Florida golf is famous worldwide. Those glossy four-color tourist brochures and web sites paint dreamy visions of glorious sunshine, palm trees, pristine fairways and simply awesome views. 
That part is true! However, that same brochure fails to mention another very important factor of any trip to the Sunshine State. There is not a single word about how extremely challenging these courses are -- especially when playing without prior course knowledge. Water, like in ponds, lakes, creeks, and streams are in play big time on Florida courses. So are bunkers! This once in a lifetime trip might come with a price ... a few extra strokes. Recapping your score on any given hole may sound like you visited a war zone. Something like this ... "Hit one in the water, dropped two, knocked the third in the trap, blasted out of the sand back into the drink, dropped five, finally hit an iron to the green, two-putted ... SNOWMAN!"
The ACE: Any golfer who has ever swung a club wants to score the all-elusive hole-in-one. The only thing that could possibly make that scenario better would be to do it on group golf trip or on a famous 
golf hole. Think about that for a moment. Getting a hole-in-one is cool, but getting an ace on a hole that everyone knows is truly over the top. Just think about how much pizzazz your story would generate if you aced the island green at TPC Sawgrass? Heck, golfers dream about that more than getting stuck on some deserted island with Salma Hayek!
someone missing a clutch three-foot put with money on the line. ... Unless you are a Golfestian!
During the past two years, we have managed to work in a pair of emergency room visits for choking incidents. Mike Werner set the choking standard during Golfest 2008 - Michigan, getting a piece of steak wedged in his windpipe on the first night. Mike survived the night with no sleep and even played 18-holes before racing to a local hospital for emergency surgery. Just a freak accident ... eh? Not a chance! In 2009, another Mike ... this one Barbone ... does the same thing at an all-you-can-eat (and choke on) buffet in Illinois. He ends up n worse shape, having to take an ambulance ride to the emergency room. What are the odds?
Both not only survived their bout with forgetting how to chew, but both put together their best golf of their respective trip the next day. It's amazing what happens when you can actually breath! Which brings us to 2010. There is a rumor going around that the Golfest 2010 agenda came with step-by-step instructions on how to cut meat and chew food. At this point, it's just a rumor! By the way, we are keeping a special watch on "Mike" Rittner and "Mike" Calahan.
Golfest members on a Bandon Dunes fairway. Or getting the stink eye from a deranged alligator in Myrtle Beach who thought he owned our tee box. And we can't possibly forget about truly unique, once in a lifetime golf shots that have had balls ricocheting off of barns, golf carts and knee caps. Or the time a friendly dinner conversation turned into a stress-inducing $1000 per hole match-play event the next day. And let's not forget about the weather. Mother Nature has had this group scrambling for cover and warmer apparel on more than one occasion. Whether she is firing off lightning bolts or dumping buckets, it's the variable we can't control. We have been standing on the first tee box when the temperature was hypothermia-inducing 36 degrees, and also on the other side of the thermometer spectrum ... an alcohol-sweat-purging 98 degrees. Something tells me Florida will dish up some heat and humidity.
Disorder, several side bets, a good tweaked sense of humor, and it gets even better.
You can bet money that the sideshows and side trips are entertaining as well. Sometimes just finding a dining establishment can be life threatening. There have been many trips where GPS has gone bad and sent us to areas where they just finished filming episodes of COPS. We also can't forget the side trips to Casino's which have resulted in some healthy winnings (and in some cases ... losses ... but I won't mention those.) Or the time we ended up in Myrtle Beach during the Black Bike Week. Trust me, nothing sticks out more than a bunch of painfully white Caucasian guys puttering around in mini-vans. There have also been baseball games, great dinners at great restaurants, side trips to buy new clubs, and some good old fashion bonding that can only occur on a road trip.
(Updated 5/9/10) ...This is a strange time for attendees of the upcoming Golfest 2010 Florida trip. Most of us are like kids, are like kids, anxiously counting down the last few days until school ends for summer. And in a unique twist ... we are also in the mode not to get hurt. Let me explain ... with the trip less than 16 days away, none of us can afford to go on the injured reserved list with a lame injury such as a sprained ankle or broken finger. That would be disasterous! Think about it for a moment. Wouldn't it be a bummer to anticipate a trip all year and then have to back out with only a few days remaining? That means during the next two weeks, there will be no pick-up basketball games, a limited schedule of household choirs (nothing involving a ladder), and absolutely no activities that involve power tools. After all, we have our priorities!
By the way, all of us Golfestians have been paying close attention to the Players Championship at TPC Sawgrass. After all, we will be playing that same venue on May 28th. How cool is that? Most of us have also tried not to notice the large amount of golf balls going in the water! If the PGA stars are making their share of big splashes, what is going to happen to us? (NOTE TO SELF: Bring extra golf balls!) We will be receiving all of the final details about the trip in the next few days and at that point ... it's all systems GO! By the way, special thanks to my daughter Laura, who put together the Golfest 2010 preview video. ENJOY!
(Updated 4/18/10) ... Golfest 2010 - Florida is only two months away, which means it's time to wind up the PR machine. The same PR machine that a movie studio would use to roll out a big summer blockbuster movie. If we were doing it right, we would solicit the services of that guy with the Marlboro-induced smoky voice who does all of the movie previews. It would sound something like this ... "It was supposed to be an ordinary golf trip ... but little did they know what they were getting into ... because ... THIS SUMMER ... from the creators of GolfestOnline ... the blockbuster epic you don't want to miss ... ... (dramatic music and explosion go here) ... one of the greatest sports movies of all time ... the annual battle between good and evil will be fought by 16 golf warriors ... THIS MAY ... GOLFEST 2010 - FLORIDA! Rated PGA-13! ... 
The 2010 journey kicks off at a resort that could support a week long golf trip on its own. The Reunion Resort in Orlando, is home of 54 killer golf holes. But since this day is all about Arnold Palmer, we are zeroing in on the Legacy course which is designed by none other than the golf legend. While Florida is not typically known for its hilly venues, this is a roller-coaster ride with elevation changes as much as 50 feet. This course will play friendly off the tee box with wide fairways being the norm. However, every green is strategically surrounded by its fair share of hazards. Get in trouble and your scorecard will bloat up faster than Kirstie Alley at Hometown Buffet. Keep it in play and you can go low. And going low would be a good start, because the second round of the day will be at ...
Speaking of Mr. Palmer, it should be a requirement that all golf enthusiasts play at the world famous Bay Hill Club some time during their lifetime. It's the home of the annual and very popular Bay Hill
Invitational. Arnold still plays the course three times a week and can occasionally be found in the coffee shop sipping his favorite cup of brew. His daughter and son-in-law run the place and three years ago they finished a renovation of the lodge and clubhouse. A year ago, he shut the place down for $2M in makeovers that replaced all the greens, flattened the tee boxes, improved cart paths, and straightened fairway lines. Palmer actually thinks the course plays easier for the average golfer now ... but in reality it's the same course here John Daly scored an 18 (that's what I said ... and EIGHTEEN) on the par-5 sixth hole.
This facility has its own special mystique thanks to the lifetime of contributions and accomplishments by Arnold Palmer. Just make sure you remove your hat in the lobby, hallways and dining rooms to conform with the strict "golf-gentlemen" dress code. After all, it's the least we can do for the golf legend.
World Woods Golf Club - PIne Barrens Course
From Orlando, the tour will steer away from Disney World to the western edge of Florida and a town called Brooksville, located a hop, skip, and a long drive north of St. Petersburg. Brooksville is the home of the World Woods Golf Club. This venue hosted one of the classics of golf television -- the 2002 Shell Wonderful World of Golf -- which still runs on the Golf Channel to this day.
This may be the most unique stop on the trip because it doesn't fit the standard stereotype of Florida golf courses. It is called Pine Barrens because of the pine trees that line its length and the barren untamed waste bunkers that are sprinkled throughtout the layout. Throw in the fact that it is sculpted over many elevation changes and you have a course that would be as much at home in Michigan or North Carolina ... as in Florida. This course is often compared to Pine Valley in New Jersey, typically the number one rated course in the world. Pine Barren's is ranked 26th in the U.S. From here, Golfest 2010 is headed north towards Jacksonville.
What can be said about the Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass that hasn't been 
said before? It's one of the most famous golf courses in the United States, giving Pebble Beach and Pinehurst a run for its notoriety money. While the signature 17th-hole island green is known worldwide, the course is best known as the site of the annual Players Championship - an event it has hosted since 1982. It also has a reputation for being very hard --- like in very, very, very, very hard! Water is in play throughout the course and you can't have a drastic enough of an anti-water swing if the wind is blowing. And even if you have the wind figured out, it won't matter because no two consecutive holes are ever played in the same direction.
While on the topic of the 17th hole, here is an interesting tidbit of information: Did you know that they fish out approximately 150,000 golf balls that get shanked, skulled, thinned, chunked and skewered into the surrounding lake. Something tells me that a few Golfestians will splash a few also!
Cimarrone Golf Club
The next stop on the Florida road show is also near Jacksonville -- Cimarrone Golf Club. For those of you not in possession of a Spanish-English dictionary, Cimarrone means "The Wild One" in Spanish. This is a well-manicured layout with subtle landscaping that promises to hold your interest from start to finish. That same anti-water swing your brought to Sawgrass needs to be in your repertoire here, because there is either water or a marsh feature on every single hole. Cimarrone will play host to a best-ball scramble tournament during Golfest 2010.
World Golf Hall of Fame
Now this is where Golfest is going take the spirit and sport of golf to the next level. After playing 18 at Cimarrone, our group will bounce down the road to nearby St. Augustine and the World Golf Hall of Fame. On tap is a private guided tour of the facility. That will be followed by 19 more golf holes ... 18 on their natural grass putting course ... and one ... a closest to the pin contest on their challenge hole - a clone of 17 at TPC Sawgrass. To keep the competitive spirit alive and well, $250 in prize money will be up for grabs, including a Ben Franklin for the individual winner of the tourney. Oh yah ... dinner is right across the lake at the Murray Brother's Caddyshack Restaurant.
Ocean Hammock Golf Club - Conservatory & Ocean Course
The tour will finish up on the beautiful Palm Coast at the Ocean Hammock Golf Resort. This is the site of two of Florida's finest golf venues -- the Tom Watson Signature design Conservatory Course and Jack Nicklaus nationally ranked (80th) Ocean Course. Both courses allow you to tee off with the Atlantic Ocean as a backdrop.
The Conservatory Course sits on 140 acres of land, and features 76 acres of man-made lakes and visually stunning water features. This course is very challenging (147 slope rating) and is best described as a "shot-makers" course. That would be necessary to avoid the urge to drop your Titliest into any of the 140 coquina shell & white sand filled bunkers.
On Memorial Day, the Ocean Course is going to dish up a picture perfect conclusion to Golfest 2010. There are several Kodak moments in store including six holes that put players right on the edge of the Atlantic. Or to put it more dramatically, if you like the peaceful thought of effortlessly swinging a golf club with the sounds of waves crashing in the background and the occasional sound of a seagull flying by ... this is your golf heaven!
The Atlantic Grille, which gets more favorable reviews than the movie Avatar, will host our group for a final night awards dinner at Ocean Hammock. Good food, good drink, good company after a great week of great Florida golf. Which reminds me, it might be time to start working on the blockbuster sequel!
(Updated 3/13/10 - 6:37 p.m. - By Jim Allen) ... It seems like it took forever, but the Golfest 2010 - Florida
countdown clock finally got below triple digits. Yes ..., there are less than100 days until 14 golfers from four different states invade the Sunshine State for a week of much needed golf. On tap are 126-holes of the best golf holes that the state can dish up at seven different golf venues. Four of those are rated on the prestigious TOP 100 Public Golf Courses in the United States list by Golf Digest.
The tour will kick off at the picturesque Legacy Course at the Reunion Resort on May 26th and ends six days later at the Ocean Hammock Resort on the Palm Coast. Sandwiched in between are outings at Arnold Palmer's famous Bay Hill Club, World Woods Pine Barrens Course and the one and only Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass. How cool is that? The group is also expected to spend some quality time at the World Golf Hall of Fame in St. Augustine. This is shaping up to be a great road show!
Speaking of shaping up, this is typically the time of the year most of the Golfestians attempt to get their golf game in order. You know what I mean ... time to dial in the driver, fine-tune the short game, and finesse the putter to perfection. However, unruly weather throughout the country has made that kind of tough to do ... not to mention everybody is working hard to survive in our wayward economy. ... (MORE) ...
This site was created on June 15, 2007.
Contact us -Top100@golfestonline.com
Webmaster - Jim Allen
Copyright . Golfest.
All rights reserved.
