Forelinksters is ab ad-free directory of public golf courses created by its members, who are regular, local golfers wherever the golf courses are located. It includes all of the best golf courses you can play that have been listed by major golf publications including Golf, Golf Digest, and Golfweek. The major difference with Forelinksters is that the golfers who play these courses rate them constantly as they play them. The advantage here is that on any given day, you’re able to find the best golf courses in an area, based on the most recent playing conditions, and of course, the individual golfer’s opinion. The website lists the best golf courses by country, state, and city, here’s a link for the courses in the United States. From there you can drill down to a specific major city. Today, we’re in Orlando, looking for the best public golf courses to play here, and will review the current top 10 public golf courses Orlando has to offer:
The 14th at Bay Hill is a tight and long par three,
1. Bay Hill is located midway between Universal Studios and the Disney Resorts in southwest Orlando. It is the owned by and the winter home of Arnold Palmer. Dick Wilson designed the course in the early 60′s, but Palmer and the late Ed Seay have tinkered with the course ever since. It is a classic, big, Florida course. 75.3/140 ratings from 7267 yards, plenty of sand, heroic holes, and not a hole to catch you breath on. It’s the home of the annual PGA tour stop bearing Palmer’s name, and only open to the public if you stay in one of the 70 lodge rooms. If you’re there in the winter around 12 noon, you might even see the King as he prepares for his daily shootout.
2. Mission Inn Golf and Tennis resort is located 30 miles north of Orlando, just off the Florida Turnpike. There are two 18 hole championship courses here, El Campeon, designed in 1926 by Charles E Clarke of Troon, Scotland, and Las Colinas designed by former PGA Tour Player Gary Koch. El Campeon is the one to play, the Las Colinas course is more typical Florida type golf with water, sand, flat land while the El Campeon is rolling hills, tree lined fairways, with some very interesting and challenging holes. The courses are immaculately maintained with the El Campeon having an elevation change of 85 feet, and is routed through stands of mature trees, lakes, and protected wetlands. The Las Colinas course is more wide open, maybe a bit of links style with plenty of bunkers off the tee and surrounding the greens, in addition to plenty of water. If you’re in the Orlando area, it’s worth your while to include a 36 hole day here.
OCN is way out in west Orange country, about 30 minutes from downtown Orlando
3. Orange County National was built in the middle of nowhere in 1997, and was the dream child of a golf instructor Phil Ritson. It was designed by a collaboration of Isao Aoki, Phil Ritson, and Dave Harmon. It is frequently rated in major golf periodicals as a Top 10 best public, and also is known for having the largest practice range in the world. The course is still out in the middle of nowhere, but at least the trip there is made easier by a new freeway system. There’s two championship 18′s, Crooked Cat and Panther Lakes, along with a 9 hole short course. The courses annually host the PGA Tour Q School and it’s a well regarded facility throughout the country. This is pure golf, no housing developments are in view. The Panther Lakes course plays over rolling meadows, through native pines, around and over wetlands and lakes, and up and down elevation changes of up to 60 feet, Crooked Cat features more movement in the land than Panther, with rolling fairways and large, contoured greens. It’s more links style with wide landing areas, native heather, and mounding throughout the fairways. The facility also has 30 guest rooms, but staying here is somewhat isolated with only the clubhouse’s food and beverage service. The courses are always in top condition, and somewhat convenient to the attractions areas.
4. Sugarloaf Mountain is a Coore and Crenshaw designed development course opened in early 2008, except there’s no development here, and none for a while. This location is out in the middle of nowhere, people find themselves here lost, but looking for something else. But the golf course is great. It opened as a private club and a potential upscale development, neither have taken off, and the course is open to the public at decent rates. The course is still well maintained even though there’s essentially no revenue so play it soon, it may deteriorate. It’s got more elevation than any course in Florida I would believe, one hole 13th probably drops 100 feet, and a par three, 17, probably 50 feet. It’s rolling up and down the terrain, the fairways bordered by full grown fescue, waste areas, a couple wetlands, and sparse trees. The fairways are fair and open, but don’t look so from the tee. Since we’re always playing flat courses here, it’s a bit deceiving with the elevation changes and variety of lies you find on hilly courses. The greens, there are a couple of postage stamps, but the hole calls for them, the others, large, but undulating, a couple of elephants buried in a few, and fast. Overall, great fun, variety, no houses, in fact no one! Gotta play it twice to learn the course management. Enjoy
Mystic Dunes is an excellent track, south of the attractions, off I-4 and US 192
5. Mystic Dunes is located on the south side of the Disney property just off RT192 at the Wyndam Palms timeshare resort. It was designed by PGA Tour player and Gary Koch in 2001. The course is routed through a former orange grove and winds through rolling terrain, mature oak and cypress stands, and protected wetlands. The course has some Scottish elements to it with pot bunkers, humps and hollows in the fairways, and large undulating greens. It’s definitely a shotmakers course, tight fairways, and guarded approaches, and usually well maintained with good service.
6. The North, South, and East Nines at Grand Cypress were designed by Jack Nicklaus along with the New Course, a total of 45 holes here. Three very good nines, all about the same type of play. The greens here are the course’s major defense, humpy, fast, like McCord says, a couple of elephants buried here, and they use bikini wax! There’s a good amount of water, fairway and greenside bunkers, and is a shotmakers course. There is plenty of room off the tee, but the approach shots are multi-dimensional. Some times they’re elevated, like #6 on the South, probably 20 feet above the fairway! Some are surrounded or bordered by water, and all of them have bunkers. It’s all a good test of golf, I don’t think I would favor any of the nine’s. The north was recently renovated, but I’m not sure there’s a whole lot of drastic changes made, more of an updating. All in all, a great golf experience. You could, and should spend the day here…the New, North, South, and East. Food service and guest service is excellent. Will always return. Much better than any of the Disney courses
7. Osprey Ridge is a 1992 design by Tom Fazio, and is the most secluded of the Disney courses, winding its way through the scrub pines and natural areas away from the noise and traffic of the Magic Kingdom. It is an Audubon Sanctuary designated course where Fazio moved over 1 million yards of top soil to create the mounding, elevated tees and greens. It is the most modern to today’s golf standards of all of the Disney courses, and the one to play. As you would expect from Disney, it is always in excellent condition, and always expensive for the Orlando market.
Unless you're enamored with playing a PGA Tour course like the Palm or Magnolia at Disney, Osprey's the best course at Disney
8. The Waldorf Astoria Golf Club is part of the Waldorf resort on Disney property, it’s located within Disney where the former Eagle Pines golf course was situated. The course was designed by the “Open Doctor” Rees Jones, and 7113 yards with a Par 72, Slope 130, and 72.5 from the tips, with four other sets of tees. It’s a classic Florida parkland style of layout with cypress, pine, and palm tree lined fairways, water on all but three holes, and well bunkered. The greens are small and elevated greens, undulating, and well guarded by wetlands, water, or bunkers. Overall, very well landscaped, first class clubhouse, facilities, conditions, and service, no houses or development on the course, the only noise is the occasional train whistle from Disneyworld, which surrounds the course.
9. The New Course at Grand Cypress was designed by Jack Nicklaus as a tribute to the Old Course at St. Andrews, Scotland. It comes complete with faux stone cart paths, stone bridges and walls, burns, hidden pot bunkers, gorse, and lumpy fairways. From the tee, the course is very forgiving, and owing to its links style, there are no trees that come into play on the open meadow stretch of land. On the green, the greens are undulating, and generally fast, and the pin positions can be tough. The course is located just north of the Disney complex, and is always in great shape. Thanks Jack!
The New course doesn't have much water, save a couple of "burns" at 1 & 8
10. Reunion Resort is in Kissimmee, southwest of Orlando, and the golf courses here are only available to guests of the resort or rental units. There’s three 18 hole championship courses here designed by Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus and Tom Watson as well as the ANNIKA Academy. The Palmer course, The Legacy, has more elevation change and fairway undulation than the other two courses and plays to 6,916 yard, par 72 from the tips. Typical of Palmer, lots of sand, water, and risk/reward shots, but wide and forgiving off the tee. The Independence course by Watson is parkland-style layout with elevated tees, well bunkered, mid-sized greens, and plays to 7250 yards from the back tees. The Nicklaus designed Tradition is parkland style with the typical Florida features of water and sand, and in my opinion was the most challenging of the three courses.Very well maintained when we were here, not much of a crowd, tee times spaced at 10 minutes. Suspect they may have troubles in the future as this was part of the Ginn development, which has obviously stalled, lots of foreclosures, maybe they’ll open the course up to local play.
There’s 150 golf courses in the greater Orlando area, the list on Forelinksters only includes 35 of the best public golf courses you can play, rated by the locals who play there. If you’d like to join our community reviewing and rating courses, please join here. Cheers!
