Golf Coast adventures

It’s not much of a stretch to think of all of Florida as a ‘golf coast’ since neither fairways nor the beach is very far away from any square inch of the Sunshine State.

Nevertheless, a consortium of counties stretching from Tampa down to Marco Island on the quiet Gulf of Mexico coastline have decided to designate themselves as “Florida’s Golf Coast,” the better to highlight the depth and variety of their golfing spots.

And it’s true. With its combination of old (dating from 1916) and new courses, golf near the ocean and golf built around inland wetlands, courses that retirees love to play and championship links that will test the mettle of any scratch golfer, the 100-plus courses on the Golf Coast offer something for every golfer.

Here’s a brief rundown of some of the interesting tracks to be found on the Golf Coast’s southern end, in Charlotte, Lee and Collier counties:

The pretty beaches on Cape Haze in Charlotte County have long attracted visitors. But there are some excellent golf courses in the area, too. The Riverwood Golf and Country Club in Port Charlotte is a lovely course along the Myakka River that has earned four-and-a-half stars in the annual course ranking by Golf Digest. Seeking to make it even better, the club replanted all of its greens in the summer of 2005.

Opened in 1999, the Ted McAnlis-designed Long Marsh Golf Club is just Miromar Lakes is the only Arthur Hills signature course in Southwest Florida one of four courses that make up the Rotonda Golf Club just south of Englewood. Routed through 300 acres of scrub pine, palms and mature oaks, with watery hazards at almost every turn, this course posts a stern challenge while it provides a lot of fun.

In Lee County, golfers can enjoy both the modern and the historic when it comes to golf. The Raptor Bay Golf Club in Bonita Springs is attached to the Hyatt Regency Coconut Point resort. Designed by Florida native Raymond Floyd in 2001, this sensitively designed course on the edge of Estero Bay has earned designation as an Audubon International Gold course. Unusual for a Florida course is the general lack of sand bunkers – Floyd instead used grassy swales and ponds to direct golfers around the course. It offers a memorable round of golf.

Located less than a mile from the Thomas Edison Home in Fort Myers, the city-owned Fort Myers Country Club is a hidden jewel of a course, designed by Donald Ross and opened in 1917. An avid golfer, Edison used to hack his ball around this course with friend and neighbor Henry Ford. The course is easy to walk and the Rossian touches – crowned greens, sharp doglegs and strategic bunkering – are still in place.

Just east of I-75, the Miromar Lakes real estate development offers golfers a crack at the only Arthur Hills signature course in Southwest Florida. The 7,400-yard course is

The Naples Grande Golf Club is an imaginative Rees Jones design surrounded by earthen berms that keep the world out and the golf ball in, and is laden with water, sand and rolling fairways. The facility also offers a 15-acre, fully featured practice facility and Golf Studio headed by local pro Mike Calbot.

The Lely Resort in south Naples has long been home to some of the best golf in Southwest Florida. Robert Trent Jones, Sr. designed the Flamingo Island course in 1990, and the chief proponent of the “heroic” school of golf course architecture sculpted the landforms to create forced carries and scary shots over water. Former Tour star Lee Trevino, the “Merry Mex,” designed the Mustang course at Lely. There are twelve lakes and numerous bunkers, but Trevino usually left enough room for golfers to recover from the occasional bad shot.

Guests of two of Naples’ beachfront resorts – the high-rise Naples Grande Resort & Club and the low-slung Edgewater Beach Hotel – can get playing privileges at the Naples Grande Golf Club, an imaginative Rees Jones design a few miles inland. While most of the course offers classic Florida golfing terrain – palms, pines, water and sand – Jones also threw in some unusual elements, such as a babbling brook behind one green, a drivable short par-four infested with bunkers and a terrific par-five hole that ends with a green perched atop a cliff of limestone boulders on the edge of a lake. The great golf is enhanced by the country-club-for-the-day atmosphere in the clubhouse.

There are plenty of other great courses along Florida’s new “Golf Coast,” ready for visitors to explore. Check out http://www.floridasgolfcoast.com/  to get started on your Golf Coast vacation.

By James Y. Bartlett, member of the Golf Writers Association of America

Courtesy of VISITFLORIDA.com