Round 5 of my Florida trip was at CC of Mount Dora. Played here on 11/29/17 after my morning round at RedTail.

CC of Mount Dora is another Clifton, Ezell & Clifton (CEC) design. I knew what I was g... Continue »

Round 5 of my Florida trip was at CC of Mount Dora. Played here on 11/29/17 after my morning round at RedTail.

CC of Mount Dora is another Clifton, Ezell & Clifton (CEC) design. I knew what I was getting into design wise when I booked my round here. The design is fairly basic with decent sized fairways, some sloping greens, and larger flatter bunkers. That is what you'll find here, so if you can avoid the water you can put up a good score. All holes run through a community and the piece of land is very flat, so it is one of those courses that won't stand out. I saw a diagram poking fun at Florida golf on social media and it had homes on one side and water on the other! That's pretty accurate for the course here. In some way or another water comes into play on just about every hole.

I played the black tees which are 6484/71.5/127 and by today's standards the course is quite short. Compared to the other CEC designs I played on the trip, I found the CC of Mount Dora not as playable. I was +1 through 7 holes and then made two quadruple bogeys and a triple bogey coming in as I couldn't find a fairway. I wasn't hitting it much differently this round than the others. I put it into three different yards and lost a couple balls in the water. Somehow I found the course to be sneaky tough off the tee, so you are going to pay if you are crooked. Lots of out of bounds and water.

Most holes felt the same and I'm pretty sure homes line each hole, on both sides. My Northern California comparison is San Ramon Golf Club when it comes to the routing through the neighborhood. The homes certainly got the best land as the course pinched in odd spots and the 13th and 16th are quirky doglegs right. The 4th is a 148 yard par 3 that has a good look to it and some of the tee shots get you thinking, but unless you are staying nearby I don't see a reason to play here, unless you've played all of the other local courses. One thing the course has going for it is that there are five par 3's, five par 5's, and ten par 4's. I enjoy that type of setup!

Regarding the conditions, not that I expected much for ~$30, but I read someone's comment that the course was in good shape compared to recent years. There were more spots of crabgrass and sandy sections than I was expecting and the overall maintenance was scruffy. The conditions didn't cost me any strokes, as I was able to cleanly contact the ball from the fairways and the greens rolled fine, on the slower side. I'm sure the course does what they can with the maintenance budget and they've done a good job to make the course playable. Playable conditions for $30 is fair in my opinion, I don't think I'd expect much more. The course offers affordable golf and there is something to be said for that.

I played in about 3.5 hours so the course's local (north of Orlando) helped with a 36 hole day, which can be tough this time of year with so little daylight. I don't regret my decision to play here, as I always enjoy playing a new course and it was another beautiful afternoon.