Champions Gate Resort

Played the National Course on Feb 16th, and its one of my all-time favourite courses. Great driving range, great clubhouse (love the food, try their Rueben Sandwich....awesome!), but most importantly, I personally love the course layout. Enough room that you can scramble if need be, but you are rewarded for good shots. Its a very fair golf course with some terrific risk/reward holes. Course was in great shape for Feb! Speed of play was more than acceptable, especially for a Friday morning. All in all in great day!

Played both the international and national courses. International is far more difficult, especially the front. Course conditions are outstanding, greens and fringe areas are as smooth as any that I have played and I have played PGA courses like TPA Sawgrass, etc. Greens are elevated so it takes precision shots to stay on the green and with the chipping areas being so tight, chipping is difficult so I got very good at using the putter from 30-40 feet off the green, through the fringe. Greens are so fast that it is hard to hold them with anything more than 9 iron, but the course is very fair test. Play the National first to get ready then the International. If you stay at the Omni, you can purchase rounds for $65 from the hotel but to get this rate you have to add this to your reservation. Can't get that rate after checkin. At the course, the weekend prime time rates are more than $100 so the $65 is a good deal.

Played on Wednesday 31st January with my regular golf mate and we both thoroughly enjoyed the course. The tee-boxes, fairways and in particular the greens were in great condition; greens very fast, even for Florida! As a heads-up the starter told us that 12 of the greens are to be re-laid in the months ahead, apparently the re-lay in 2014/15 wasn't as successful as it could have been! Really...they seemed pretty damned good in our humble view and we have been lucky enough to play on some seriously good tracks. Paired up with two absolutely great Canadian guys. They were infrequent players, one in fact was playing just his second round and in fairness this is not a course to take on until you have a little more experience under your belt. Some long carries from tee over water, 200+ yards (from the whites) and some tight shots - you need to be able to at least keep it fairly straight, if not draw or fade. Given my lack of talent I didn't have a great score but would absolutely have another go at it. Enjoy!