The golf club has a good restaurant with friendly help.
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One of the most pleasant aspects of Bay Tree National Golf Club is that while challenging, many features of this course makes it a win for newer players. The fairways tend to be wide near the tees on most holes. Although there are many lakes and traps, these tend to be harder to get into. My husband and I played here recently and only had one or two golf balls roll into the palmettos. The wide fairways can be a relief for newer players who hit hooks or slice from the tee. If your first ball hits fair, that's half the battle. A few of the back nine holes have narrower fairways and more of the trickier shots. Some holes require the golfer to hit over ditches so chipping up is sometimes needed. A couple of the back nine holes have hills along one side. The first time I played here it was in late summer so I worried about rolling out of bounds. I thought, hit high on the hill, the golf ball will roll down. This doesn't work. It's far better to avoid the hills, my husband and I found there was plenty of room for the golf ball to land away from the hill as the fairways opened up down range. The last hole features a real surprise, you hit toward the green and have to drive way around a small lake before walking onto the green from the back. It's a fun golf course with a lot of variety in how your ball lies and with a lot of scenic views. Located in Melbourne, Florida, 32940, it is near I-95. For a better view of how the golf course plays, see the video below. The golf club has a good restaurant with friendly help.
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I feel bad about writing a review about offseason golf in Auckland, New Zealand because we were playing golf during a long period of drought. The Formosa Golf Course kept their greens well watered but many places the grass had turned brown. This is always good for a nice roll so all is not bad. Formosa Golf Course had many touches of Asian gardening that added color to the course and I chose this golf course because it offered scenic views. The hole pictured above is one of the course specialties. It's a short par three downhill and if you miss the green, well, you're down on the mucky tidal beach below. To make it more difficult, the green is sloped to the side and it is a large green so that even if you land on the green with your drive, you still might have many long putts. The view however is spectacular. For a first taste of New Zealand golf it offered lots of birds, views, plant life and challenge. The first challenge we encountered was our lack of car. We thought, no problem, take a taxi. The taxi driver was willing to wait at the course and earn the return fare for no extra gas, but the cost of play was much less then taking the hour to and from drive from our hotel in Auckland. Live and learn. This wasn't the case for most New Zealand golf because after this, we had a rental car. The above hole was my favorite with exotic trees to look upward at, lots of sand, and some large zen stones in a sand garden along the side, or maybe that was a slightly different one. The course plays with lots of uphill, downhill, and sidehill lies. It features many sand traps, many views of the coast and bay, and several large duck ponds. The course is somewhat more challenging for women than for men. The clubhouse is large with friendly staff. The video below shows a better view. The very friendly Brookside Golf Course in Ashland, Ohio, offers students at Ashland University a great chance to unwind from their studies. Played mostly by the local community, this pleasant course is open to the public. The Clubhouse is small and inviting and offers snacks for players and some golf supplies. One of the main challenges on the Brookside Golf Course are brooks that cut across the fairway; I love this roofed bridge show in the photograph! Other challenges include variations in height (see photo below), surprisingly wet fairways and slow greens due to the unusual 2014 rains, all those beautiful trees along the fairway, and sand traps that are ordinarily easy to miss. The rains weren't really a problem for us, we just put on our wet weather gloves and continued along our way. Luckily for us the lightning and thunder was brief, the rains very light, and quickly disappeared. Most other players also continued. The above photo shows why many golfers walk this course which is like a park almost. After paying fees, golfers practice a fee putts then check in at the starter then play with few delays.
Well, for me it was easy because I had a husband who made all the arrangements for staying at the Barcelo Bravo Palace Deluxe Resort in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic including all of our tee times online the internet (the link takes you to their webpage where you can arrange a room and a tee time). That was the first step. The second step involved getting our golf clubs to the golf course. We took the resort train from the pick up stop at the end of our hotel building (the place is very large) but I think perhaps getting the golf cart first and picking the clubs up in the same spot would have been much easier. The third step is checking in with the pro shop--lunch is available in the dining room right next door and since our first tee time was late in the afternoon, this mean lunch first was a great choice. The restaurant here has a dubious reputation for being really slow with some of the people we met, but for us it worked out fine. The restaurant didn't open until 12:30 so we had drinks first until they opened. Barcelo Bravo Palace Deluxe is an all inclusive so the beer (Presidente), Coca Cola light, hamburger, roast beef sandwich, and a dessert had we wanted it were provided without charge. The tee time cost us a charge for use of the golf cart. Had we played 5 times instead of three, the cost would have been less but as it was ended up at $40 per person. Afterwards, we were able to store our golf clubs at the Lakes Golf Course. The fourth step is choosing the appropriate tee. My husband thought the blue tee distance was about his pace for his first game, the next two were played at the more typical white tee. The reason is on a couple of holes over the water, the distance can be pretty long. My husband had a much happier, less stressful time on the white tees. For women, the red tees play within a usual handicap. Other hints about playing the course involve the challenges. One of the hallmarks (see photo above) of the Lakes Course at Barcelo Bravo Palace Deluxe are the scenic golf shot lakes especially the number 9 and number 18 hole with their wood braced raised greens. Play it with the exact right club (the holes play long when faced with wind) with a high arching chip shot. Another is the hidden greens (see photo to the left). Place your approach shot so that a high, arching chip shot that lands and stops is your best bet. Another hint is to stay in the center of the course, choose the right distance club to stay out of the lake with any additional roll. A last warning is to stay out of the sand traps. Many are hidden. You get over one sand trap only to fall in the smaller one hidden behind. The Barcelo Bravo Palace Deluxe golf course is in excellent condition. We played after heavy rain and found you had to punch the ball hard to get it in the hole on the green and we also had to walk (most of the course was closed via cart path only rules due to soggy turf). Two days later, the greens were fast and driving on the course was allowed. Rain drizzled and was a relief from heat, the heavy rains came at night. Be prepared with sun protection. Note: WiFi from the Barcelo Bravo Palace Deluxe resort isn't available on the golf course. I’m cool, warmed up, loose.
I’m gonna crack this ball straight down the fairway all the way to the white post, clean and straight. Yeah. I’m the king of the worm burners, oh, no, I’m the baddest Tiger of these here woods. Ha ha, not bad, I launched that there rocket clean into that oak, missed my forehead, missed my partner, never you mind. I’m out on the fairway now. I’m cool, warmed up, loose. Got my eye on the ball. King of Zen. Just swing and … yeah. Okay. I’m King of the beach blanket beee-ing go. Okayyy. No problem. Golf is about practice and practice make perfect. Okay, closed my eyes there. Splash? Splash it is. Okay, I’m Chipping King, just smack that ball into that little ole hole. God’s be with me. Whew. I’m the man. Ain’t I the man? Blow me a-way! It’s all won on the greens guys. Ain’t I the King? Didn’t I just chip right in? Ever see anything like that before? MMMhmm. You on for five on the next hole? I thought Sweetwater Golf & Country Club's golf course was going to be easy to play until I reached hole 10. This is not to say that the front nine holes lack challenge. The Sweetwater Golf & Country Club in Apopka, FL is friendly to visitors. The golf clubhouse is split between several buildings--the snack shop for instance shares quarters with the pool crowd. Dining at the snack shop is very good, I liked the turkey sandwich just fine. There's a separate place for the pro shop and another place for dinner dining. We didn't get golf cart service but they provide drinks vending machines at the bathrooms halfway along each nine. The golf photograph above is about half of hole number ten. The hole travels uphill through the trees and when you get to the top, you find the lake and the hole curving around it to the left. This hole is pretty tricky since the side hill lie tends to want to put your golf ball in the water as does any roll. The golf photograph to the left shows one of the tricky par 3's on Sweetwater Golf & Country Club. Three of the par three's require a drive over 150 yards, including this one that has a deep gully and pond. Other challenges on the golf course include a sand trap hidden in front of one green, another long sandtrap beyond a tree that allows golfers to shorten the distance to the green. This golf club is pretty lively with many events, an upcoming Thanksgiving Day buffet, and a long time on the golf course--5+ hours for our round. I have to admit I wasn't very impressed with this App, the Mozosoft Free Golf Range Finder for my Android phone. First of all, it didn't have an accurate view of my current position. Second of all, it didn't have any information about the golf course which I was on. Thirdly, most other Apps have a score pad with it; this does not.
This app is a very simple one. It will display an aerial view of the golf course you are on and it allows you to pick points on that view and find the distance. So how does the average golfer use this app? Well, when you walk up to the tee and want to know how far away a tree is from where you are hitting, you can look for it on the aerial view, click the tree and find out how far it is away. This is very helpful for those tight holes where you can overdrive and end up in the trees, the water hazards, or the sand hazards. It does this feature much better than my handheld Bushnell Golf Range Finder which works by pointing your sighting at the tree and reading the distance. It also aid by providing an aerial view where you can identify whether or not their are water hazards or other challenges over a hill, hidden by a tree or dogleg. Since the view is from a satellite, it gives an up to date view of course conditions-- in Florida, sometime lakes appear after rainfall then dry out. You can also find the distance very accurately on your approach shot and to determine exact distances for a carry over water. For what it does, and for it's price, this app is better than none at all; but there are much better choices for the price, features available. Orlando Beach Hopping Visitors Might Like Golf at The Preserve at Turnbull Bay, New Smyrna Beach, FL11/18/2013 The clubhouse at the Preserve at Turnbull Bay in New Smyrna Beach, FL is not intimidating. This photo shows the clubhouse from the first tee. Coming into the club, you're met by staff members who help you load your golf clubs into a cart right away. This photograph shows the challenging second hole, a par 3 across water that isn't as difficult as it may seem. The houses, also, sit well back from the golf course on most holes, so golfers don't need to worry about accidents or a big audience. There are many water hazards on this golf course. The way to handle the narrow starts on some of the holes is to use a shorter club, anyone that golfers find are easy to hit straight. The drives over water seldom result in lost balls, unless they roll off from the side. We found play on this course was crowded so we were glad we had a tee time, especially since we started at about 9:00. Although we often followed the foursome in front of us, play moved well and we easily managed our round in under four hours. The clubhouse has a small snack bar in the pro shop and we did have cart service. The bathrooms were available about halfway and at the clubhouse. Afterwards, there was plenty of time for lunch at BlackBeards in New Smyrna Beach and a stroll along the beach, too. The Deltona Club in Deltona, Florida, offers an unexpected golf course in Florida, one that has no water hazards. So will you find a golf course with enough challenge? The answer is of course, it's a golf course. The best part of the Deltona Club golf course was starting off on the number ten tee and ending up on the number nine green. Why? Because after a tough round, I got to play an easy par 4 followed by this par three in the golf photograph. The hole shown above shows the sense of humor that the golf course architect had in creating the Deltona Club golf course. Sand is used to save costs and to make it very difficult to do anything but land on the green. Other golf course challenges at Deltona Club includes holes that climb uphill, downhill, very substantial doglegs including one surprise hole that wasn't right in front of us but off to the right. The best way to handle Deltona Golf Club is to use plenty of sun protection, pick the right club for the distance to avoid trouble and to use a firm but dug in attack out of the sand trap if you do get into one. Check out Amateur Golfer Benefits to Phil Mickleson's Secrets of the Short game for more help. When I lost my old Android telephone that I was having a terrible time with since it kept freezing and I wasn't sure how to clean up apps and the like, I bought a new Galaxy 3 Notepad Android phone at the Verizon store. This time, I bought lots of extra memory so I would't have as many difficulties.
One of the first downloads I made was of the FREE Golfpad App for Android. Many of my friends on the Central Florida Golf Club had mentioned they used golf apps to track their score, figure their handicap, and get the distance to the flag. Before I downloaded the FREE Golfpad App for Android onto my phone, I read through all the descriptions of all the apps. I liked this one best since it seemed to be really free i.e. no additional download costs to load the layout of golf courses. So what do you get with your Free Golfpad App for Android: This is the good list:
This is the bad list:
Some other major points that I like:
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Sheri Fresonke HarperSheri loves to golf, travel and to write. Follow Sheri Fresonke Harper on Quora
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