Santa Lucia River Club, Port Saint Lucie, FL

I played Santa Lucia River Club with a friend of mine who is a member and loves it there. It is a challenging but fair golf course. Everything is right out in front of you. The greens are typical Jack Nicklaus greens and roll extremely true. The clubhouse is nice and the staff is great and will go out of their way to give you a great experience. Definitely a "hidden gem" of the treasure coast. I am highly considering joining the club this season.

I played this course in a Golf Channel event weekend of April 3rd, 2010. The staff and facilities were much as I remembered from playing there in 2003 when it was open to the public. I can't really remember the course too well, but I recall it being challenging and fun.

I was very keen to play it again to see what Jack Nicholas had done to improve the course. For starters, there are more baby elephants buried on these greens than any other course I have played. This may not be a problem for members who play here regularly, but for us poor peons who only get to play there when everyone else has gone home it is a problem. A word to the wise, if you do anything else here always aim for the middle of the green and pray you didn't hit the slope on the wrong side. Having said all that, I took just 13 putts on the front nine, if you hit it on line you will get a true roll to the hole.

We played off of the green tees at about 6500 yds and the course was a good test with plenty of water and ball shaping left and right to keep things interesting. The bunkers were well positioned, with a consisitent feel through all of them. All in all, I would love to play here again now that I am more familier with the greens, if you know someone at the club and need to make up a fourball just let me know and I will come running.