Orlando Daily-Fee Golf Courses, Page 1 - Orlando Golf
The population explosion in Orlando, first ignited by the theme park and entertainment boom and currently sustained by the city's additional growth in the banking and high-tech sectors, has created strong demand for recreational services, including golf courses. The result is the Orlando area is among the fastest growing U.S. cities in the construction of new golf courses.
In my first visit to Orlando in the spring of 1999, I couldn't play all of the public and semi-private courses that were recommended to me, but I did manage to play a few. I plan to catch the others on my return trip. Here are some to consider:
The Disney Courses
Seeing how golf could be a vital part of the Disney entertainment package at Walt Disney World Resort, resort President Card Walker, an avid golfer, authorized the building of Disney's first two golf courses. The Magnolia Course and adjacent Palm Course, both designed by Joe Lee, opened simultaneously with the resort in 1971, the same year the company inaugurated the first Disney-sponsored PGA tournament. Jack Nicklaus won that event and the two subsequent Disney tournaments. Today, the event, now called The National Car Rental Golf Classic at Walt Disney World Resort, is one of the oldest PGA tournaments to be held at the same site.
As the popularity of Disney golf continued to grow, validating Walker's vision, the company added Lake Buena Vista (Joe Lee), Eagle Pines (Dye), and Osprey Ridge (Fazio), bringing the number of Walt Disney World (WDW) Resort 18's to five. There is also a 9-hole walking course, Oak Trail, primarily designed for resorts' visitors with very little golf experience.
Osprey Ridge
Osprey Ridge No. 16
The newest Disney course, Osprey Ridge,
opened in 1996 and designed by Tom Fazio. I am a diehard Fazio fan. I think he is THE best designer and
I have played a dozen of his courses around the country. I would put Osprey Ridge right up there among his best.
Fazio is the Deacon of Dirt. He can sculpt some masterpieces out of the most pedestrian sites. As with Shadow Creek in Las Vegas, he turned a flat, undistinguished site within the Disney property into a layout that looks like it should be in the mountains. With upwards of a million tons of earth which he dug up to create some half-dozen lakes around the course, he has created dramatic elevations and fashioned some of the most memorable holes marked by ridges and high mounds, waste bunkers bordered by tall native grasses, and wide-sweeping fairways that offer spectacular views of old pine forests. These features give Osprey Ridge a pristine look and feel that makes you think you are miles from civilization, yet The Magic Kingdom and all the other resort attractions are literally a few miles away. The course was renamed Osprey Ridge from its original title after Ospreys began nesting in the six nesting platforms installed around the course. The birds are just a few of the wildlife species seen on the site.
Osprey Ridge No. 17
After a strong front 9 featuring a terrific downhill par 3 and the half-moon shaped dogleg right par 5
9th around a lake, the course seems to pick up momentum, as each magnificent hole gives way to the next.
Nos. 16-18 are the best three finishing holes I have ever played. They include the par 5 16th, a 542-yard
dogleg left around a lake from a well bunkered, sloped green elevated some 12 feet above the fairway.
The drive from an elevated tee over water on the 216-yard 17th to a mounded green makes this hole as
challenging as it is majestic, and the 454-yard 18th dogleg right around still another lake is reminiscent
of Pete Dye's classic finishing holes.
Osprey Ridge is a genuine Tour caliber course, yet it is not laid out to accommodate huge crowds. There is only one access point to 14 of the holes - a wooden bridge through dense forest.
Celebration
Celebration: Aerial View
Disney also has a community golf course called
Celebration.
It lies a few miles from the resort
entrance in the community of Celebration developed by Disney Development Corporation. The community, which is about
3 miles east of the resort entrance off Rt. 192, is unique in that it represents the vision of Disney planners as to what
communities of the future would be - cohesive and self-sustaining living units that include hospitals, schools and
recreation facilities, restaurants and shops and houses that are "homey" and not artificial. Resort visitors interested
in community planning may enjoy visiting Celebration.
Celebration, the course, is a Robert Trent Jones Sr. and Jr. collaboration. Managed by American Golf, Celebration is
the only Disney course run by an outside firm. The course is on forested land and farmland and has two distinct 9's.
The front has a parkland feel and winds through tall pines and oaks, while the back has the windswept heathland look.
It is wide open with lots of mounds and steep-lipped bunkers on the fairways and along the perimeters of the holes.
I found this design characteristic a bit annoying and unnecessary, as one's view of the green is often obscured.
Still, the course is extremely popular among resort guests. 
Orlando's Best Daily-Fee Courses, Page 2
Orlando Golf
Cock your wrist up (not back), swing your arms back, turn your shoulders and rotate your forearms
Rotate around your axis and maintain the same posture throughout your swing in order to pivot properly
CHRIS TOULSON demonstrates pitching basics including set up, wrist hinge, turning of the body and finish position
Pick an intermediate target to aim for that is between your ball and the target
Hit closer to the ball using a normal backswing and accelerate the club on the way through
In a one plane motion the arms, shoulders and hips all turn around in a circle as opposed to a slide and hip bump in the two plane swing.
