I played Biltmore yesterday morning joining two locals and another single. This course is marketed as one of the highlight courses in Miami so I was curious to see if it lived up to its billing. ... Continue »

I played Biltmore yesterday morning joining two locals and another single. This course is marketed as one of the highlight courses in Miami so I was curious to see if it lived up to its billing. Things didn’t start off very well regarding customer service. First off the service in the restaurant was some of the worse I’ve had in years. The food was average at best. Oh well, on to the pro shop. Not much better there. She couldn’t find my reservation even after I showed her a screenshot of my booking confirmation. We got through that but there were a couple of other issues. One, you have to pay for parking in the parking lot. However, you can scan a code in the pro shop and they will comp you the parking. But not if you have already paid for your parking. This information would have been helpful to have on the website and in the parking lot. Two, the online price indicates that a cart is included. Negative, carts are extra. I’m all for a walking price and a cart price, just be clear about it. Next came range balls. I inquired about range balls and she said there was a ball dispenser on the back side of the shack near the range. She was correct, except you have to have a code which you get when you pay for range balls in the pro shop.

On to the actual course itself. Overall, not a bad layout. They have a few creative holes in what is a mainly a parkland setting. Fairways are generously wide on most holes with some well placed trees and plenty of fairway bunkers to keep you honest. For the most part the fairway bunkers weren’t an issue. I was in a few of them and no problem getting out and reaching the green. The fairways at Biltmore were very nice. Lush and green and easily the best I’ve played since being here in Florida. I’d rate the fairways at a strong 7 or weak 8.

Greens were a different story. One of the members said the greens were in horrible shape and needed a complete overhaul. At first I thought wow this guy has high standards as the greens weren’t bad at all. Then we ran into some that had some bad patches but the pin was kept away from those areas. As the day progressed I started realizing all of the greens had some serious disease, brown spots and general ugliness. I will say that the grounds crew did a good job staying away from the bad areas with the pin placements. The greens rolled at a medium pace.

Tee boxes were in bad shape. Obviously a different grass was used for the tee boxes and it is struggling to survive. A lot of the tee boxes had recently been filled with sand to try and get them back into shape. There was enough good coverage on the par 3’s to find a good clean hitting surface.

There was one water hazard in the form of a man made canal that runs through about 6-7 of the holes. There was about 2 forced carries over the water with the rest being lateral hazards. Not the most creative use of water hazards but not the worst either.

Overall, this was a decent course that at the walking resident rate (they will check for ID) it’s worth it. The extra fees for cart, parking and range balls make it a so so and the rack rate for visitors takes it off my “recommendation” list for sure.