Florida Sand Belt

[Garland Bayley]

I have mentioned the Florida Sand Belt a few times and Floridians don't even know where it is. Therefore, I am interested in what people think of the courses in the Florida Sand Belt, where the Florida Sand Belt is defined as

"Central Florida is ridged by a series of dunes that two to three million years ago were islands of scrub surrounded by ocean. These spines extend for miles, from north to south, and crest at more than three hundred feet above sea level—serious elevation by Florida standards. They retain distinct local ecosystems and bottomless amounts of sand. Compared with all of the loamy, two-dimensional courses scattered across the state, these sandy layouts make for an adventurous brand of golf. Three ridges in particular—moving from west to east, the Brooksville, Lake Wales and DeLand Ridges—feature the kind of firm, fast-drying terrain that has produced some of Florida’s most exhilarating courses."

from

http://www.travelandleisure.com/articles/golf-the-florida-sand-belt

The article convinced me that if I ever play golf in Florida, the sand belt is where I want to play.

[Charlie Goerges]

You're only allowed to play if you wear "Sans-a-belts".

[Chip Gaskins]

I think it runs about 30 miles north west of Orlando.

Coore & Crenshaw built a course there called Sugarloaf Mountain.  Unfortunately in a real estate deal that is probably getting hammered now, but a great course to see IMO.

I have heard Jupiter Hills actually has the most elevation change in FL though..

Chip

[Bill_McBride]

I think it runs about 30 miles north west of Orlando.

Coore & Crenshaw built a course there called Sugarloaf Mountain.  Unfortunately in a real estate deal that is probably getting hammered now, but a great course to see IMO.

I have heard Jupiter Hills actually has the most elevation change in FL though..

Chip

It also runs SE of Orlando, where you find Southern Dunes and Mountain Lake, both sand based courses with some elevation changes.

[Tiger_Bernhardt]

Bill is correct. It is funny how little this fine area for golf is discussed.

[Mark Bourgeois]

http://golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php/topic,28247.0/

[cary lichtenstein]

Mission Inn near Orlando is also in the sand belt with excellent elevation changes, very quirky in a good way and provides you with a day of shot shaping and challenges.

If you don't like downhill, uphill, and sidehill lies, lots of grain don't play there.

[Mike Sweeney]

Bill is correct. It is funny how little this fine area for golf is discussed.

I think part of the problem is that these two inland ridges don't have the economic base surrounding them as you would find along the coast.

As a result, there will always be a month or a season where World Woods, Deltona, Sugarloaf..... are not up to the conditioning of flat boring Palm Beach area.

Of course, there is always the chance that the Raters are just stupid! 

[Patrick_Mucci]

I have mentioned the Florida Sand Belt a few times and Floridians don't even know where it is. Therefore, I am interested in what people think of the courses in the Florida Sand Belt, where the Florida Sand Belt is defined as

"Central Florida is ridged by a series of dunes that two to three million years ago were islands of scrub surrounded by ocean. These spines extend for miles, from north to south, and crest at more than three hundred feet above sea level—serious elevation by Florida standards. They retain distinct local ecosystems and bottomless amounts of sand. Compared with all of the loamy, two-dimensional courses scattered across the state, these sandy layouts make for an adventurous brand of golf. Three ridges in particular—moving from west to east, the Brooksville, Lake Wales and DeLand Ridges—feature the kind of firm, fast-drying terrain that has produced some of Florida’s most exhilarating courses."

from

http://www.travelandleisure.com/articles/golf-the-florida-sand-belt

The article convinced me that if I ever play golf in Florida, the sand belt is where I want to play.


Garland, while that land may have been good for golf, it's not where the populations migrated to in the winter.
They didn't go inland, they went to the coasts, east and west, thus the development of golf courses followed the populations.
The second piece is the growth of self contained golf in residential communities.
As the migrating populations shifted from temporary to seasonal to full time, more and more golf courses were developed on both coast rather than inland.

Mountain Lake and a few others were the exception.

Disney's siting in Orlando was propably the begining of a new migratory trend inland.
Soon after, courses like Lake Nona and others began to appear.

[Ronald Montesano]

Victoria Hills in Deland is my current favorite Florida course.  I would play Sugarloaf and I would also play that Bobby Weed redesign in the same Vie-Sin-I-ty.

[Jud_T]

What is the current status of Sugarloaf?  Looks like someone else is managing the property.  Is it essentially public? Is there any hope for the development? speaking of golf course developments on hold, and not to hijack the florida sandbelt discussion, but are they ever going to finish Wicked Pony? Is Tetherow any good? is the development viable?...maybe we need a Bend thread....

[Tiger_Bernhardt]

I am curious about the future and current status of Sugarloaf

[Steve_ Shaffer]

Hampton Golf is now managing Sugarloaf Mountain. The original developer, Crescent, is out.

http://hamptongolfclubs.com/smountain.html

I would imagine that real estate development is on hold.

[Mike Hendren]

While Sugarloaf touts its elevation change, I didn't find it well utilized with the exception of the big downhill one-shotter, a stellar hole.  One could argue that both the 9th and 18th are redundant slogs uphill.  I played the course early on and slated it then as a candidate for economic struggle.  It seemed rather remote and it was quickly becoming obvious that Florida would rank with California, Nevada and Arizona as ground zero candiates for the housing debacle. Moreover, while I am a huge fan of C & C, there is limited evidence that their name moves real estate.  The course's early conditioning issues and temporary clubhouse wouldn't help in that regard.  While we easily look such trivialities, prospective homeowners do not.  As for the architecture, the course received significant acclaim from the magazines and some fanfare on GCA.com, but I was disappointed.  

Bottom line, the delivery of this course and development was incredibly ill-timed and the architecture lacks the C & C brilliance that might overcome that - if anything could.

Mike  

[Brian Noser]

While playing Deltona a local and I got to talking about courses in the area. Sugarloaf came up, he said overhyped and in crappy condition. He said for his money he would not go back. He haid Deltona and Victoria were much better. Deltona was very good, that is the only one of the 3 that I have played.

[Adam Lawrence]

Hampton Golf is now managing Sugarloaf Mountain. The original developer, Crescent, is out.

http://hamptongolfclubs.com/smountain.html

I would imagine that real estate development is on hold.

Hampton has been involved with Sugarloaf pretty much since the beginning I think. Certainly they were when I visited during GIS last year - I had a fair bit of communication with MG Orender at the time.

Adam