Great Golf Magazine Sep/Oct 2017 September October 2017 | Page 68

Florida.qxp_St Enodoc 28.09.2016 13.15 Side 3

Reunion Resort

Stadium Course 17th hole, TPC Sawgrass

or most Brits, a Florida holiday means theme parks or
beaches. But how about packing your golf clubs as well?
Take a coast-to-coast golfing trip from its historic,
Atlantic-facing north-east to the balmy Gulf of Mexico
shores in the south-west, stopping off in central Florida,
and you can play some notable golf courses – with plenty of time
for fun off the fairways.
Arriving at Orlando Sanford Airport, five of us, including two
non-golfers, set off on a rollercoaster road trip up and down
Florida’s highways and byways in a rental minivan. We take it in
turns driving, covering some 900 miles in seven days (Florida is
larger than England and Wales combined) and manage to play
eight rounds, all on different courses.
With no traffic nightmares, it is effortless burning up the miles
on Florida’s roads. Our first destination is Ponte Vedra Beach,
close to the Georgia border, to stay at the Sawgrass Marriott Golf
Resort & Spa after sunset cocktails and dinner overlooking the
ocean at the resort’s Cabana Beach Club.

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GREAT GOLF MAGAZINE

HOME OF PGA. Next morning, we head over to the adjacent TPC

Sawgrass – home to golf ’s unofficial “fifth major”, the Players
Championship, and headquarters for the PGA Tour. Timing is
everything in golf, though, and unfortunately our visit coincides
with major renovations that have closed both Pete Dye’s celebrated
Stadium Course and its unsung sibling, Dye’s Valley Course.
However, we get a guided tour of the palatial clubhouse
followed by a buggy ride to see the three finishing holes of the
Stadium Course that have delivered so much drama over the years.
Among them, the intimidating par-3 17th, with its island green
buttressed by railway sleepers. There is no bail out. You make the
green or you’re wet. Close up and without the baying, beer-fuelled
crowds, it looks short and innocuous. But having played Sawgrass
on a previous visit, I vividly remember the fear factor building
steadily through the round.
Finally reaching the 17th tee, I was such a bag of nerves that I
dunked two balls straight in the lake – and promptly swapped my
wedge for my camera. Each year, divers retrieve more than