The Villages - Central Florida
<TABLE id=table1 cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR><TD>The VillagesBy Peter OrganI am sure most of you have seen the commercials on The Golf Channel with Nancy Lopez advertising The Villages. After a thorough search of the internet we chose to try this location for the month of February 2004. The Villages is situated in Central Florida about an hour north of Orlando and half hour south of Ocala. This area is primarily agricultural with many orange groves and horse farms. The Villages has been called a Disney World for Adults, with a population of over 35 thousand. It is a fast growing over 55 adult community with many activities and a vast selection of golfing opportunities.
Golf includes 6 championship courses with 3 of those having 27 holes. The rates for the championship courses depend on season and selection and vary from $ 30-50 including cart. The newest addition is the Arnold Palmer Legends course a 27 hole facility which opened in January 2004. Five sets of tee blocks allow you to play to your ability level .There are sixteen executive 9's which are mostly par 3's with an occasional par 4.
Three sets of tee blocks speeds the pace of play. The executive courses are free as they are included in the purchase or rental of your unit. Walking is allowed on these executive courses.
The golf courses are relatively easy with few forced carries, and not much water in play but many sand traps and tricky approaches .The greens are large and in excellent shape with even the executive courses offers full size greens with the same playing conditions. The golf marshals at all courses stress and almost everyone stops to repair divot holes, considering the amount of traffic these courses receive they remain in excellent condition.
The busiest time of year is January to March with the snowbirds filling in the extra tee times. A sophisticated tee time reservation system has been set up to equally distribute available slots, the system takes bookings four days in advance and sorts data based on priority, requested time and course preference and then adds in you and your partners prior weeks playing time, sorts all this data and then assigns you a tee time.
With over 200 different activities to choose from this is a very active place and if golf seems to have the most participants think again actually 10 pin bowling has more aficionados than golf
On our way home we stopped at the World Golf Village near St Augustine a great combination of history and golf. Included at the village is the World Golf Hall of Fame and two championship golf courses the The King & The Bear (the first course that combines the course architecture of Jack & Arnie) and The Slammer & The Squire named for it's legendary consultants Sam Snead and Gene Sarazen Restaurants include a Sam Snead's and Murray Brothers "Caddyshack" restaurants. Add all this up then include a number of shops and a PGA Tour Stop golf pro shop with an inventory of equipment and clothing that boggles the mind. You can easily see that this place is a true golf addicts version of heaven.
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