There’s a new attraction here in Winter Garden that combines monsters and miniature golf apply named Monster Mini Golf. It’s a certainly a new twist on golf that makes the game fun for the entire family.

It’s been open at the 1297 Winter Garden Vineland Road location since June and sure to be hit among residents for some time. I wish they served food, but you can have it catered if you decide to have a party there.

There’s a lot of scary golf shots even without monsters, but it may be a different story for someone aged in the single digits.

Typically, you have to be a guest at the resort and pay hundreds for a greens fee to play golf here, but currently they’re offering Central Florida residents the opportunity to play here for only $69 Monday thru Thursday and $79 Friday thru Sunday until September 30th.

It’s a great deal which I’ll be taking advantage of this summer.

Watch Food TV video: Grand Cypress Resort Orlando

Ginn has sold the real estate sales and management operations to Reynolds Signature Communities and looking like we won’t hear about any new developments for a while.

While Bella Collina is just in it’s infant stages of development, Reunion is mostly complete and in my humble personal opinion, I’d prefer a property in Reunion over Bella Collina. Reunion is by far the best resort style community in SW Orlando much less all of Central Florida. It’s definitely not a place you wanna live permanently, but a great place for a vacation home.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t believe buying real estate in a vacation community yields great capital appreciation, but if you like to play golf and visit the attractions and you want a place that you own nearby, Reunion Resort is a better choice than most the other options available on 192 or hwy 27.

If Reynolds does anywhere near as good a job as they do in Reynolds Plantation in Georgia, I expect Reunion to remain a fantastic resort with some killer golf courses.

It’s flat out hard to get into this club tournament. If you wanna represent SW Orlando’s Isleworth, you gotta beat out Robert Allendy, Stuart Appleby, Daniel Chopa, Darren Clarke, John Cook, J.B. Homes, Charles Howell III, Nick O’Hern, Mark O’Meara, and probably the easiest one to beat out, Tiger Woods. SE Orlando’s Lake Nona has Ben Curtis, Chris DiMarco, Ernie Els, Retief Goosen, Trevor Immelman, Graeme McDowell, Mark McNulty, Ian Poulter, Justin Rose, and Henrik Stenson.

Let me tell ya, there’s other great golfers that got left out. The good news is that you get play alongside these guys if you belong to one of these clubs, but there’s pretty much no chance of playing in their club tournament unless you’ve proven yourself on the tour. Heck, most PGA events don’t have such a star studded field.

I’m a SW Orlando guy, so I’ve gotta pull for Isleworth who’s been puttin on the Lake Nona crew for the past couple of years. Come on Tiger, keep the cup on this side of town. Everyone in Dr. Phillips and Windermere are pullin for ya.

The Golf Channel will be televising the event, so I’ll be checking things out here and there for the next two days to see if SW Orlando retains the Tavistock Cup.

There’s plenty of choices in all price ranges for golf communities in SW Orlando so I’ve decided to put together a list for download. The most affordable is Stoneybrook West and the most exclusive is undoubtedly Isleworth. Stoneybrook West is the only community with a public golf course while all the other golf community offerings in SW Orlando have private golf clubs. Bay Hill is probably the most well known with it hosting Arnold Palmer’s golf tournament every year and Orange Tree is in my humble hacker opinion the toughest course in the area. The greens, believe it or not are found at Stoneybrook West and of course Isleworth. The most numbers of properties are available at Stoneybrook West and Keene’s Pointe. So if you’ve always wanted to live in a golf community in SW Orlando, here’s the most comprehensive list around. All the properties were pulled from the MLS today. If you’d like more detailed information on any of these properties, please feel free to contact me and I’ll be glad to get it to you free of charge.

download pdf:

• Homes Available in Bay Hill
• Homes Available in Orange Tree
• Homes Available in Isleworth
• Homes Available in Keene’s Pointe
• Homes Available in Windermere Club
• Homes Availalble in Stoneybrook West

related posts: Golf Communities in Dr. Phillips, Golf Communities in Windermere, Golf in Winter Garden, Professional Golfers in SW Orlando

It’s that time of the year again when the two best country clubs just about anywhere duel it out at the 2008 Tavistock Cup. Isleworth and Lake Nona fight to see which club has the best golfers as its members. With the impressive list of players at these two club, it might as well be for the world.

To see the event in person, one must have an invitation although it seems like it’s pretty easy to find someone with an invite. I don’t believe I’ve quite made it to the point where they’ll send me a personal invitation but at least I know people who get the invitations who feel urged to bring me along. That’s good enough for me.

The Isleworth team included the best golfer in the world, Tiger Woods, along with Robert Allenby, Stuart Appleby, Dan Chopra, John Cook, JB Holmes, Charles Howell III, Mark O’Meara, Nick O’Hern, Craig Parry, and Paula Creamer. Lake Nona was made up of Ben Curtis, Chris DiMarco, Ernie Els, Retief Goosen, Trevor Immelman, Graeme McDowell, Mark McNulty, Ian Poulter, Justin Rose, Henrik Stenson, and Annika Sorenstam.

The event takes place at the home country club every other year and this year it was at Isleworth in Windermere. This year’s Tavistock Cup featured a duel of the ladies between hall of famer Annika Sorenstam and young gun Paula Creamer. Annika got the best of Paula this time but I would imagine she wanted a little revenge after the defeat she suffered from Paula at the Solheim Cup.

This year’s battle was a landslide win by Isleworth winning 19 1/2 points to Lake Nona’s 11 1/2 points. It was the other way around last year with Lake Nona trumping Isleworth.

Either way, the Tavistock Cup is one of the most anticipated events in SW Orlando. We’ll all be awaiting its return in a couple of years.

There are 45 properties available for sale at Isleworth as today ranging from $1.5 million to $7.5 million. You can download a pdf of the available properties below.

download pdf: 45 Properties Available at Isleworth

related post: Golf Communities in Windermere

The arrival of spring is right around the corner and that means the PGA tour is making their annual pilgrimage to SW Orlando at the famed Bay Hill Club and Lodge hosted by the “king” Arnold Palmer. It also means the tour will playing the TPC at Sawgrass the following week and the Masters is not too far away. Needless to say, there will be no blog posts around Masters weekend. The Bay Hill Invitational kicks off on March 10 and concludes on March 16. Defending champ Vijay Singh will be in the field along with most of the top pros except for multiple winner Tiger Woods who typically plays in this event. Tiger has not committed to playing in this event this year even though he lives just minutes down the street at Isleworth and obviously fits his game since he’s won the event a bunch of times. I’m sure Arnie sent the invite. Anyways, my favorite victory was the year Tiger and Phil Mickelson dueled in a playoff with Tiger draining a long birdie putt to win it on the first playoff hole. Regardless of Tiger, all of us golf fans in SW Orlando will be eagerly awaiting this tournament’s return.

As of today, there are 65 properties in Bay Hill available for purchase. Prices start in the low $400′s and go much higher. You can download this list below.

Download PDF: Properties Available in Bay Hill as of March 3, 2008

Watch Slideshow: Course Map of Bay Hill, 2007 Winner Gallery

Related Post: Golf Communities in Dr. Phillips, Golf Communities in Windermere, Tiger Woods’ Windermere Home in Isleworth

The city of Winter Garden offers some of the finest golf in Central Florida. The trio of Orange County National, West Orange Country Club, and Stoneybrook West offers three very different styles of golf.

Orange County National offers two championship layouts with Panther Lake and Crooked Cat. Both courses have played host to the final stage of the PGA Q School numerous times. Most people say that they like Panther Lake better but I tend to like Crooked Cat more. Perhaps, it’s because I’m not that good of a golfer. I normally shoot in the 80′s and occasionally make it in the 70′s so a good golfer may mean different things to different people. At the very least, I’m not a hack.

The conditions here are superb most of the time and the best time to play these courses is during the winter months when the windswept conditions play a factor as the courses were designed. The layout is wide open but very long so they both play a lot like a links layout. There’s a lot of great golf holes here but the ones that come to mind are the par 5 seventh on Panther Lake and the par 4 twelfth on Crooked Cat.

The tee shot on the seventh hole at Panther Lake requires a long drive between rows of huge oaks on both sides of the fairway and then the second shot usually measuring between 220 and 260 yards for most golfers require a decision to go for the green or laying up to the right. If you go for the green then you bring in the wetlands that lie between you and the green and there’s also out of bounds if you go over the green. The berm and bunkers behind the green will stop most balls from going out of bounds but I’ve definitely spent some time looking for balls in the out of bounds area. It’s a great opportunity to a make an eagle but I’ve witnessed a lot of big numbers here. One competitor in a recent Q School tournament made a 12 on this hole. Really the play is to lay to a comfortable yardage here. If you decide to lay up to the right, then the slew of bunkers come into play but it is the right play.

The twelfth hole on Crooked Cat is also a joy and terror to play. The tee shot is played from a tee that’s elevated by about a 100 yards with wetlands short and lining the entire right side of the fairway. The tee shot plays into the wind most of the time and really windy days, I’ve seen competitors at Q School lay up to the lady’s tee box and trying to make par the hard way. The second shot on this hole plays between 120 and 200 yards depending on the golfer with the green flanked by wetlands short and directly to the right of the long and narrow two tiered green. Hitting from the fairway is no guarantee of a par here.

I tend to play these courses much more during the summer months simply because greens fees are over $100 during winter and only $20 for twilight rates in the summer. There’s also a par 3 course called the Tooth that’s a lot more fun than just hitting the balls on the driving range and really better for practicing accuracy with the irons. These courses are definitely the most well known in the area and a must see for any visiting golfers.

Currently there are no homes overlooking the golf course but the Horizons West Planned Unit Development FAQ PDF File shows there will be some golf view homes in the near future.

Stoneybrook West already offers numerous homes on the golf course not too far away in Winter Garden. The golf course is an Arthur Hills design with his trademark deep penalizing bunkers and arguably the finest greens in the area with dramatic undulations and tour quality speed. Some of the most memorable holes is the par 5 fifth hole, the par 4 ninth hole, the par 3 Eleventh, the par 4 fifteenth, and the par 5 eighteenth. It’s all set in a guard gated setting but the prices do not reflect it. Virtually the entire course is surrounded by homes so the golf experience is not quite as appealing but on the other hand, there’s plenty of opportunities to live on a superb golf course for a reasonable price.

Homes on the golf course can start as low as $300k and can go up to about $1,000,000. US Homes, Lennar, and Rutenberg built the homes here with a contemporary Mediterranean style and there tends to be a lot of 2 story plans. Stoneybrook West is equipped with so many amenities besides golf that it should appeal to most everyone. Amenities include: 2 clubhouses, playground, roller hockey rink, basketball court, tennis courts, water park, pool, lakeside gazebo, guard gated entrance, and numerous social events held by the community association. You really do get a country club/resort style lifestyle at very reasonable prices.

West Orange Country Club is the only private golf offering in Winter Garden and also the only layout that is target oriented. The course is old school and not long by any stretch of the imagination but plays longer because the fairways are always soft and do not give any roll. All the golf holes are narrow and surrounded by numerous pine trees that makes it difficult to play a normal shot to the green. The greens have been renovated recently and they’re all small and firm. Balls that land short will not roll up to the green and balls that land too deep on the green tend to roll off. When you look at the scorecard you think this course is a piece of cake but I’ve seen a lot of pros shooting in the 80′s at the mini tour events held here.

My favorite golf holes here are the par 5 tenth hole and the par 4 eighteenth. The tee shot on the tenth hole requires a shot over the trees on the dogleg left with bunkers on both sides of the fairway in the landing area. The conservative strategy is to play a hybrid or 3 wood short and right of the dogleg but push it too far right and you get blocked out by the trees. The trees on the left always seem to catch balls that try to cut the dogleg on the left. It’s a par 5, just get it in the fairway unless you’re really long. The second shot ranges from 230 to 280 and can be reached in two but the green is really small for a par 5 and the good miss is to the right of the green although your chip shot will be over a bunker and landing on a downhill slope with very little green to work with.

The tee shot on the eighteenth hole is long and requires a solid drive with a slight fade. You can cut it off by getting the tee shot really quickly and hitting it between two dead tree limbs that are about 10 yards wide. The second shot usually plays between 180 to 230 yards and always difficult to judge because of the swirling winds. I’m usually just happy to get it on the green with a chance at a 2 putt for par. The atmosphere is very casual here for a private club and probably why it appeals to someone like John Daly who is a member here. You see him sporadically but he always parks his RV here during the tournament at Bay Hill. Other notable members include Deane and Brendan Pappas and Brad and Bart Bryant. The $4,000 initiation for an equity membership and monthly dues in the $200 range are a good value for the money. They allow members to walk here so you can save a little by skipping the cart. Some of the homes in Summerport overlook holes number 2 and 3 from the left side of the fairway and a few homes in the Willow on the Green subdivision have views of the course but most of the golf is surrounded by nature for a pure golf experience.

The trio of golf courses are in Winter Garden offer some great golf experiences for all skill levels and gives the finest courses in Central Florida a run for their money.

Flyover Video of Panther Lake at Orange County National

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Flyover Video of Crooked Cat at Orange County National

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related posts:
Golf Communities in Windermere
Golf Communities in Dr Phillips
About Winter Garden

The final stage of the 2007 PGA tour Q School gets underway at Orange County National in Winter Garden on November 28 and finishes on December 3. Both the Crooked Cat and the Panther Lake course will be utilized for the event and will provide a stern test with both courses stretching about 7,500 yards. Notable local golfers fighting to finish in the top 25 out of the field of 166 players to qualify for the PGA tour include Lee Jansen, Steve Lowery, and Skip Kendall.

Numerous professional golfers call SW Orlando home because of the abundance of golf communities in Dr. Phillips and Windermere. Some notable PGA members that reside in the area include: Tiger Woods, Mark O’Meara, Stuart Appleby, Robert Allenby, Charles Howell, J.B. Holmes, Brian Gay, Bart Bryant, Brad Bryant, Arnold Palmer, Scott Hoch, Lee Janzen, John Cook, Nick O’Hern, Craig Perry, Peter Lonard, Grant Waite, Deane Pappas, and Skip Kendall to mention a few.

Notable LPGA members include Christina Kim, Jeong Jang, Se Ri Pak, Mi Hyun Kim, and Aree Song. I know I’m missing some but that’s all I can remember. Please feel free to point out the missing.

Golf coaches are located close to SW Orlando making it convenient for all the professional golfers. The presence of world renowned golf gurus such as David Leadbetter at Champion’s Gate, Phil Ritson at Orange County National, and Brian Moog at Keene’s Pointe make it easy to call Dr. Phillips or Windermere home. One of my favorite TV stations, the Golf Channel, is also close by.