[Bryan Izatt]

Sorry for the delay in getting back to this, as I was playing 36 holes at Victoria Hills today (thanks to John C and others for recommending it).

To Pine Barrens, when I talked ranking I was more thinking about on here and not in GD et al.  In the magazines it's ranked respectably high enough I think given the ranking schemes the magazines use.  It's not going to go higher given the conditioning comments, lack of facilities, lack of high profile tournaments and historical events.

Around here, it suffers from the apparent Fazio curse.  Given the architectural features it exhibits, why is it not more highly thought of here.  Is it really just Fazio?

The shortcomings described in other posts seem trivial to me, if you're assessing the course on it's merits from an architectural perspective.

It's too hard to get to.  C'mon.  With the Veternan's Expressway terminating at its doorstep, it's easy and quick to get to from Tampa.

No hotels nearby.  I stayed at a brand new HI Express 9 miles down the expressway in Brooksville.  Took max 10 minutes to get there.

It's not a major resort.  Who cares.  The price is still way cheap.  This course has to be right up there in value for money.  I stayed there till dark and have played around he putting course.  It was still only ten minutes to the hotel and restaurants in Brooksville.  Pebble Beach or Pinehurst it isn't, but then you don't have to mortgage the house to play it.  And what do these have to do with the quality of the course?

The conditioning.  It was first rate.  The overseeding had taken well.  The greens were fast and true (versus the ones at Victoria Hills that were comparatively glacial and had some resodded areas).

There were many people around doing maintenance.  Even including sanding old pitch marks on the greens.  It sure didn't appear as if they were stinting on maintenance.

The routing of carts around two, seven, twelve, sixteen and eighteen can be confusing, but there is signage, and there is no interaction between holes.  In fact, I remember thinking as we finished our second round, that thiswas maybe the quietest course I'd ever played.  Total silence except for birds (and someone far away hitting yet another pine tree).  The routing of the holes takes good advantage of the property; who cares about the cart central aspect.

Is it as good as Bandon or Pebble?  Maybe not; but is that because it doesn't have an ocean in sight?  Or one of the preferred architects?  Or historical importance?

Back to the central question.  In my view there is nothing wrong with the architecture or the condition of the course.  There is a lot that is good to great.  Why is that not more widely appreciated and extolled here?  Can it really be the rote Fazio curse?

[Mike_Sweeney]

Back to the central question.  In my view there is nothing wrong with the architecture or the condition of the course.  There is a lot that is good to great.  Why is that not more widely appreciated and extolled here?  Can it really be the rote Fazio curse?

Now I understand that your focus is GCA.com, I will rephrase. World Woods PB is special and unique. Basically there are only a few Pine Valleyish courses that you can really compare in my mind, and they are:

Pine Valley
Tobacco Road
Pine Hill NJ
WWPB
Pine Barrens NJ
Shoregate
Sand Barrens NJ
Forest Creek NC - the new one, haven't played it but looks like it fits
Friars Head - sort of at least for 9 holes or so
Hampton Hills - Long Island - great site, average course

It would be 2 or 3 on that list for me, and obviously there are few courses in the world with greens like Pine Valley.

If I was recommending courses to Fat Baldy Drummer coming from overseas to see the diversity of Florida, it would be on a short list of four courses:

Seminole - Ross on the ocean
Mountain Lake - Raynor in rolling hills of Florida
TPC Sawgrass - Pete Dye at his manufactured best
World Woods - as close to Clementon, Nj as you can get just about anywhere.

My fifth for modern in Florida would be Calusa Pines based on what I have heard and not seen, however Tiger was raving about The Concession the other night.

I really don't have a Fazio bias, in fact I make a point of playing the Fazio course when my son and I play at Disney. He does not do that much in the Northeast and in Florida most of his courses are housing developments. In general I prefer to play a stand alone course over most any housing course, which is my bias/preference.

[John_Conley]

Sorry for the delay in getting back to this, as I was playing 36 holes at Victoria Hills today (thanks to John C and others for recommending it).

Glad you had a good time.  I'm very happy to hear World Woods is in good shape.  I too love playing there.

[John_Cullum]

They must have decided to take a new approach at World Woods in the past 24 months. I have played there 7 times since June and it has been in very good condition each time, once in the summer the greens were very high, but that must have been a planned maintenance event.

[Jason Mandel]

I agree with John Cullum.  I played there with him in October and the course was in great shape.  The greens were fast, the fairways were fairly firm and the course was a lot of fun.  I'm sorry that I didn't get a chance to play Rolling Oaks, which I know John speaks very highly of.  The complex really is something to behold, although the place is in the middle of nowhere.  Driving up from Tampa on the new Florida Turnpike or whatever its called I felt as if I was on the Garden State Parkway, stopping to pay tolls every 10 miles or so.

From what I understand, that Turnpike made it a heck of a lot easier to get there from Tampa.  On another note, I'm really suprised to hear from Jay that Mike Strantz had no involvement with WWPB.  If thats true, that who designed the 14th Green???  

Jason

[John_Cullum]

Jason

There's no shortage of flights from Philly to Tampa. They used to advertise a really low fare out of St Pete too.

Rates at WW stay low through December, and I'm up for another game anytime.

[Tags:]

Tags:

[Tags:]

Tags:

Call to undefined function theme_linktree()