This photograph taken of the eighteenth hole at Eagle Creek Golf Club in Orlando, Florida shows way a golf game here can be a delight and challenge. They are one of the nicest courses near to Disney that you can find. They even have condos--I'm not sure if they rent them or not.

The keyword about this golf course is sand trap. It's an easier course to play then many of this quality, 4.5 star rating from Golf Digest because of the wide fairways. But the sand traps can make it less easy since they are strategically placed around the greens and at the usual driving distance where a slice or hook can land you into trouble.

Here's a close up of one of the worst sort of sand traps--it's not really filled with sand, instead its just a deep pit on rocky soil. There are regular sand traps, some even this deep, these little pits will test anyone's chipping skill.

Homes are being built on the back nine of the golf course. I assume this course may go private eventually. Right now its open to the public. 

The food at the Belfry Restaurant is really tasty--I had a bacon, turkey, apple sandwich that was unusual and tasty--it normally also comes with carmelized onions and cheese which I don't do, but I expect some would find it really wonderful. Eagle Creek currently (5/31/2013) have a golf and lunch special, click here to find out more.

When my husband and I visited Panama City, Florida, we found it quite warm and beautiful and of course had to play golf. Our first game was played at the Bay Point Resort Golf Club (seen in the photograph to the left), the only time available was in the afternoon. Since we moved to Florida, we try to play in the morning because it is cooler. Luckily, Bay Point Resort Golf Club had two advantages that made it wonderful to play. 

The pro shop is a small place, but very welcoming and they have pretty nice items for sale. On one hole during our golf game, they offered us a golf deal, bet you'll land on the green and if you win, you get double your money at the pro shop, if you lose, keep 1/2. So my husband and I each bet $5 and we both lost, but we managed to pick up a nice palm tree pineapple marker clip for me and then my husband found a Nike Golf shirt with a pocket so he picked that up.

But the two advantages I mentioned Bay Point Golf Club had, what are they?

The first is they managed to keep old large live oaks near the tee, so even if you do wait to tee off, you do so in the comfort of considerable shade.



The second advantage that Bay Point Golf Club has is the cool refreshing breeze coming from the ocean. The golf course is along the coast, but except for the parking lot beside the marina, golfers rarely see the ocean.

This golf photograph shows my favorite hole--it has this lovely lake and bridge (only to leave).  The Bay Point Golf course has many water hazards, but most don't interfere with your game as long as you hit the ball straight. Many of the holes are quite narrow. 


Luckily, most of the golf carts have a GPS device that explains how far from the hole you are and show a map of the hole so you have advance warning. The Best Golf Courses with the Most Water Hazards may have you traveling all around the US in order to try them out.

We visited Forest Lake Golf Club and because it was rather warm out, we decided to skip out on our putting practice. This is a very bad idea. My husband and I were not the only golfers coming in with three and four putts a hole--putting this badly is a serious ouch for your score. So what can you do to help our your putting at Forest Lake Golf Club?

One thing that will improve your putting on a golf course such as Forest Lake Golf Club is to make use of a golf range finding device. Each golf cart at Forest Lake Golf Club comes equipped with a ProShot Golf GPS device. Not only did it give the distance to the hole from your current location, but it also gave the distance to several spots on the green and other hazards such as sand traps. We still augmented the advice provided by the ProShot Golf GPS with our exact distance ranger finder. What both of these devices are supposed to do is get your approach shot as close to the hole as possible. That only works if your chipping is close to exact. So good chipping practice and club selection is in order.

The photograph of one of the greens at the Forest Lake Golf Club shows some of the difficulties involved with golfing this course:

1. the green is large
2. the green has multiple slopes
3. the flag is placed on an angle

So how do you handle putting on such surfaces:

1. practice putting uphill, downhill long distances before you go out to get a feel for how hard you should putt
2. when you near the flag, don't try to tap it in--you'll miss
3. slow down, imagine a line from the hole through your ball, then follow it on your putt
4. make sure you keep your head down until the ball stops
5. follow through to the hole, don't stop after tapping it

When our group started paying close attention to our putting, our putt count went down.

One reason that my husband and I report our scores as the number of strokes / the number of putts is to remind ourselves how much our score would go down if we dropped out putt count for the eighteen holes to below 36.

The photograph to the left shows one more reason why putting at Forest Lake Golf Course is difficult--complicated approaches insure that your chipping can put you into difficulties such as blocked by a tree, by a bunker, rolling into a lake, or sandy area on the lake fringes, sand hazards,  and woods.

Overall, Lake Forest Golf Club is sure to test your skills as a golfer.

Today, I'm writing on behalf of all those people that work at Golf Clubs driving the golf cart around to deliver up drinks, ice, water and snacks to all us thirty golfers. Many golf courses only have this service during peak play on weekends, so it pays to have drinks on you before you head out, especially during summer time heat. What drinks should you drink and why? Beer to relax, but beware, beer tends to dehydrate you so you should keep something like Gatorade or Sports Drinks on hand to replenish lost potassium and sodium. Water is always best because your body requires water. Bring an insulated container full of ice to keep your drinks cool. Some golf courses don't permit personal coolers; the reason is that too many people go out, get toasted and damage golf carts and other equipment. Even if there are no bathrooms on the golf course, drink plenty of water--with a golf cart it is easy to get back to the club house.
This picture of a friendly golf cart offering up drinks is taken at Old Works Golf Club in 1205 Pizzini Way, Anaconda, Montana.

Old Works Golf Club was designed by Jack Nicklaus around the Federal EPA Superfund Cleanup Site at the Old Anaconda Copper Smelter. Around the golf course, you see many piles of tailings and processed scrap. The course has many tricky shots and picturesque moments. You find old equipment. You find old smelting buildings. You find cool rocks. The course is kept in immaculate condition, the rates are reasonable. There's some good birdwatching and camping sites in the area as well as nice hotels. When we ate lunch downtown, we got to try a local beer variety called Moose Drool made by Big Sky Brewing Company, that should provide enough incentive to go try it out. Lunch at the Old Works Golf Club clubhouse was excellent. Oh, and you get to chip out of black sand.

Recently, poetrysoup.com had a member contest devoted to golf limericks; the one I wrote is titled Slow Play. A limerick is a short five line poem rhyming aabba, and usually deals with drinking and sex or other recreational activities.  In the contest, the contest sponsor Craig Cornish suggested the best way to get the beat correctly was to use a syllable count for each line of the five line poem as 9/9/5/5/9. Most limericks don't have titles unless they are built on a poetry site that requires a title. That's limerick as in poem not like the photograph of the town of Limerick, Ireland.

Here's a new Golf Limerick for the week:

Odds on the Shot


      Pastor Joe offered odds that he'd par
      and win every hole against his partner
               but Noah's drive undersea
               rose by nose of manatee
      Joe said forget it Noah, I'm too poor.


I'm not the only one who has this illness, if you want to call it that.  Golf Limerick Poems is a fun website where you can find golf-oriented limericks and poems, the most recent dedicated to the Master's Tournament. Isaac Asimov is also famous for his collections of limericks he wrote, find his collections at Amazon.

If you're unfamiliar with the tradition of limericks, that isn't surprising. We visited Limerick, Ireland several years ago and found the only place we could find a collection of limericks was in an airport shop. 

We did not golf in Limerick, either, but found our way to the nearby town of Adare where the local golf course, Adare Manor Golf Club contains ruins of a castle. This was a new hazard for me. Unfortunately, the lepercauns destroyed my camera with a plunge into a pool of water shortly after we played and I lost my picture of the golf course. The picture shown is one of the lovely cottages found downtown Adare, where there's a park and good food along with shopping in the cottages.

There are a number of hazards in the game of golf that help to increase the challenge of the game. Some of these hazards are natural, some of them are constructed to look natural as in the photograph to the left taken at Walkabout Golf Course in Mims, Florida.  This raised green sits in a place surrounded by water hazards. A water hazard is a hazard because it is very difficult to get your ball out of the water with a typical golf shot, pulling it out of the water requires the payment of a stroke. Sometimes the penalty is the loss of the ball entirely. The Top Rated Golf Courses with the Most Water Hazards is a handy guide to finding out how to challenge your golf skills playing courses with water hazards. Other hazards include man made obstacles, sand hazards, bunkers, moguls, rough grass, trees and woods.

Water hazards are often marked with a red stake as in this golf picture to the left, taken at Providence Golf Club in Davenport, Florida. If your ball falls in a water hazard, you take a drop, one club's length from the marker line. If a water hazard is not marked with a red stake, or a red chalk or paint line, the rule is to take the drop from the top of the bunker where the ball went in. Many water hazards are sloped sharply to provide a deeper water catchment to keep water off the golf course. Some, like this particular spot, seem hidden to golfers during play, due to curvature of the slope or indentures near the green. It helps to check the golf card or the hole post to see a diagram of the hole so that you know what is coming.

Sometimes water hazards are constructed as barriers between the fairway stretches or the green as seen in the photograph to the left taken at Black Bear Golf Club in Eustis, Florida. The barrier here is formed by a lake.
If your ball falls into such a water hazard, the golf course typically has a ball drop marked on the far side, where you take your next stroke. Sometimes the distance needed to be covered exceeds the ability of the player--this is the main reason for the ball drops.

Water hazards can be made by lakes, streams, rivers, ocean, ponds, swamps. In areas in the Southeast United States, use a ball retriever to fetch a ball in the water due to American Alligators and Cottonmouth snakes.

This particular photograph was taken at Providence Golf Club in Davenport, Florida. This card is posted in the golf carts there so that golfers will know where the golf will be on every hole.

The starter at Providence Golf Club informs golfers which placement the flag will be for the day. Just before chipping on to the green, golfers can check the car to get an idea about how the green is shaped and how much space on the green there is for the ball to roll to the hole. 

Other golf courses may not be as sophisticated in their pin placement. Some golf courses don't have starters and the club pro or person at the cash register when ringing up your green fees will tell you. 

Some golf courses only use the color of the flag to indicate pin placement. Again, the golf cart, or the score card will tell the golfer what the color of flag means. Not all golf courses change their flag color or provide a map. Then it is up to the golfer to estimate based on experience (and sometimes a sneak and peek drive ahead) to determine where the hole is.

Why is it important to know pin placement if you have a distance reader?

Pin placement maps show you how much space surrounds the flag. Depending on the space around the flag, you may choose to have a chip with more or less loft. Hazards will also affect the decision.