[A_Clay_Man]

Feeling like a kid in a candy store, I recently was more than fortunate to tee it up on this 1987 Jack Nicklaus design. Called the New Course, to juxtapose it with TOC, I was treated to 2 1/2 hours of unadulterated non-dictorial golf, on 110 acres of very well maintained low-mow turf. No fairway overseeding adds to the texture and realism. The double greens were as cool as I can only imagine the prototypes are.

Dave Hill, the superintendant for that side, seemed like he'd fit right here on GCA, having golfed much of the panhandle which he compared to Texas style golf. Dave's boss Dan Alex (sp?) purportedly has himself quite the definitive graduate school for superintendants around the globe. Kudos!

Clearly the routing was the only downside, to the entire experience. Spreading the holes-out over a wide area was but a small sacrafice inorder to provide this style of golf, in the tourista town of Orlando.

Bold doeens't begin to describe the green contours. Allowing for the marraige of imagination and touch, often ends in divorce, but somehow, this sick puppie of a scribe laughed and loved what most would whine as unfair.

So what did I miss? I loved it.

My first reaction, after completion of round was WHY? Why hadn't I heard about this course, more? Why, did the design principles found in those holes, take a long hiatus from the mainstream fare built over the course of the next ten years?

[DTaylor18]

Adam, I played the course about 4 years ago on vacation with my wife and loved it.  In fact, I played Bay Hill the next day and enjoyed the New Course a lot more, and have recommended it to anyone asking me about courses in the area.  The most common complaint I heard was that it was gimmicky.  Obviously it is unusual for Orlando, but i too loved the double greens and for someone that doesn't go overseas often, it was a lot of fun.  Especially compared to many of the housing filled options elsehwere in the area.  

[Joe Hancock]

Adam,

I've mentioned my appeal to The New Course several times here, always with the addendum that a previous super on that course was one of my underlings.

I loved the hit-it-anywhere feel, although in reality it is quite startegic off the tee because of the bold green contouring.

It is by far the best JN course I have ever set foot on....not that I have been on very many JN courses.

At least there's two of us...

Joe

[THuckaby2]

Why haven't you heard more about this course?  Why isn't the idea repeated more often?

Because Nicklaus did it, and in here, his name generally means "course must suck", only behind Fazio and Rees Jones in general scorn.

I am sort of kidding, but not completely.

Hey, it's not The Old Course, how could it be?

But it is great fun, as you saw, Adam.  I really enjoyed it also - played it 5-6 years ago myself. If this course was done by any of several other names, it would be praised to high heaven.

TH

[A_Clay_Man]

It must be something in the name? Somewhere in the recesses of this washed-up grey matter, I had probably heard a word or two, but it wasn't until recently I saw something about Jack doing Scottish, that piqued my interest. Heck, from the name alone, I thought the place had just opened. Go finger.

One of my first questions was, if one could golf it backwards.

On the final par 3, I hit a pull of pulls and was 15 feet from the wrong pin, and about 170' from mine. On the penultimate, I had one of those sidehill downhill lies, and after sucksesfully wussing-out into the gorse, I hit a madball to with 2 feet from 236 yards. Clearly the best swing of the trip.

[Pete Buczkowski]

Adam,

Huck is partially right  ...however, I think the biggest comment that I have heard is that Nicklaus had the ability to replicate the Old Course quite a bit more than he did, and critics are disappointed that he didn't.  For instance he has a Road-type hole that moves the other way instead and doesn't quite capture the feel of the hole.  I think its a Doak 5 or 6, so it is not really disliked as much as it is viewed as "what could have been".  

Another possible explanation is the length and rating of the course.  Its certainly not long at 6700 yards, and its 71.5/122 rating from the tips will not excite the low marker.

It usually makes the top 100 you can play by Golf Magazine FWIW.

Pete

[SL_Solow]

Its been a long time since I played there.  Was it playing firm and fast?  When I played it the conditions were closer to typical Florida and combined with the Florida turf, much of the ground game element was lacking.  Thus while I loved the layout (subject to Adam's excellent point about the routing) the conditioning removed much of the appeal caused by the ability to use the ground game.  I have since wondered whether that was a function of maintenace practice or whether the turf is limiting.

[Doug Sobieski]

Adam:

During my years at Bay Hill, when we wanted to have FUN on the golf course, we'd head down the street to play the New Course. It was great to get away from the Driver/2-iron "strategy" (even though in 2005 you don't need as many 2-irons anymore) of our course to visit a place where you had to think more. I'm glad to hear you really enjoyed it for what it is. It's fun, it makes you think, it challenges your short game, and you can shoot a low number if you play well.

Quick story about the New. We had a member that was probably a 2 or 3 handicap. Decent player, but usually a B player in the daily Shootout. He played in an FSGA team event at the New, and in one round he had a bogey, a three-putt par, and a rain delay, and shot 62!! The next lowest score that day was 69. It demonstrates that if things are going well there, you can go deep.

I'm glad you enjoyed it so much. It's one of my favorite places in Orlando.

All the best,

Doug

[A_Clay_Man]

Shel, I suppose its relative, but I'd say the course was running pretty firm and fast, through the green. All of the Florida courses, I golfed this winter (and I assume every winter) get that little bit of added firmness. What it demonstartes to me is, just how fine a line it is from acceptable to over-saturated. The greens especially were firm. Any shot played to exact yardage was doomed to be long. The shot I described above, from 236 yards, probably ran a good 40-45 before the contour, on the green, applied the brakes.

Thanks, Doug.

[BCrosby]

I have always loved The New.

Why it isn't a model for Florida courses generally has always been beyond me. It handles wind beautifully. They seem to let it dry out when the weather allows. The greens are wild, but not stimped to crazy speeds. There is very little high Bermuda rough, which means recoveries are both possible and fun.

I can only think that it is not a model for Florida courses because of some failure of the architectural imagination. On an institutional scale, perhaps.

Having said all that, it is a pale imitation of its Scottish forefathers. But I do love it.

Bob

[Pete Buczkowski]

Has anybody played both Championsgate International and the New course?  I know their styles are similar but have never heard of a direct comparison of the courses.

[Mitch Hantman]

Pete,

I have played both, and they are not similar to each other.  They are both good courses in their own right.  The New Course is great fun as posted above, and it's always a course that I recommend, ahead of the usual suspects, to people going to Orlando.

Championsgate International has its detractors, but I myself enjoyed it.  Norman has created his own brand of pot bunkering there, with a little Royal Melbourne and a little County Down mixed in.  Definitely worth seeing for yourself.

[Bill_McBride]

One of the things I have enjoyed most about the New Course is the contrast to the Grand Cypress North and South which to me are as evil an early Nicklaus design as there is!

The New is fun, the GC courses aren't.  You could literally be seriously injured if you drove a cart off one of the sharp changes of elevation within the fairways at Grand Cypress.  I have walked the New several times and it's an easy walk.

I think that Road hole would be more fun if there were perhaps a dune to hit the tee ball over.  It didn't seem much like the Road hole at TOC.

[Mark Brown]

When I played the New it was not fast and firm, so it wasn't all that exciting. That's the big challenge in most of the Southeast where it's generally quite humid and they overwater because of evil overseeding. If you like to play bounce and run play Smyers' Southern Dunes about 20 minutes west of Disney. It's always firm, fast and fun -- and no I'm not in love with Smyers. If you have talked to him about design philosophies etc. you would know why I like him.
He just needs a break through site like Pacific Dunes (where he was in the final running) to show more people what he can do. He's a great ambassador for the game.

[A_Clay_Man]

Mark, I golfed a Smeyers right after I golfed the New. It didn't suffer in a let-down sense, at all.  I found the greens to be exciting, and I didn't feel any claustrophobia, as one would expect.

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