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I played at the Ritz Carlton Grand Lakes in Orlando in mid-February. The Grand Lakes course is a Greg Norman design. 

It has been recognized by Golf Course Management as the National Resort Course winner in the “Environmental Leaders in Golf” Category. 

That award sounds like a stretch category, but when you are on the grounds, you notice a beautiful, well thought out and unique marriage of the course and nature.

The course has been the recent home of the PNC Championship ~ part of the PGA Tour Silly Season events, where Tiger and Charlie Woods tee it up with 19 other family teams that may or may not get some TV airing time.

You might not be aware, but Charlie and Tiger did not win the event this year.  The winners were Bernhard Langer and his 23-year-old son Jason.  Team Woods finished tied for 5th.

This is my second go around at the Grand Lakes course and I think the course is akin to The Capital Grille restaurant chain.  When you visit the Capital Grille, you are fully aware that you are overpaying for a great steak, but it is highly unlikely that you will get anything but a great steak.

One thing about the Ritz-Carlton Orlando is that it is a beautiful and huge property with the worst traffic directional signs ever.  Once I got on the property, I knew where I was going, and still got lost.  But the benefit of asking for directions at the Ritz-Carlton Grande Lakes is that any staff member that you ask was going to be exceedingly nice and as helpful as can be.

After a wasted 8–10-minute drive around the grounds looking for the course, we found the bag drop.  Again, everyone is exceptionally nice.  We dropped the clubs off and went into the pro shop to square up.  Again, everyone was pleasant with no air of pretentiousness. 

Our entire foursome had a good warm up session on the range, but I never made it to the putting green.  Since we represented outside play, we were assigned a forecaddie. 

His name is Chris.  Chris could not be nicer and more pleasant and the consensus of our foursome during the post round dinks and food is that Chris could not read a putt to save his life. 

At about the 6-7th hole, the group stopped asking him for reads and if he gave us advice anyway, there was a good chance that the putt was going the other way.

Having said that, the course was not in great condition.  It was in perfect condition.  

The weather was in the high 70’s with no wind to speak of and a few clouds.  It was an absolutely perfect day.

Of course, my entire view of my greater Orlando golf trip was colored by how I played.  I played four straight days after not playing for about 7 weeks.

Every round I played better than I expected.  That has never happened before and may never happen again.

To Chris the caddie’s credit, when I started to pull my tee shots to the left on the turn after a great front nine, he quietly and politely told me that I was not setting the club at the top and was starting my downswing too soon.  In my entire golfing career, I never been told so eloquently that I sucked.  It was a masterpiece in caddie coaching.

A few of those hooks kept me out the 70’s and I settled in at an 82 ~ which I was very pleased with.

The highlight of the round had nothing to do with me.  The 13th hole is a short par 4 that plays 350 yards from the back tees.  This is the hole that Charlie Woods drove during the December 2023 PNC Championship.  We knew this fact from Chris the caddie. 

We played the hole at 318 yards, and I hit, for me, a very good drive.  One of my guests, who I consider 70 years old going on 40, hit the longest drive I have ever seen him hit and well beyond me. 

He could have almost putted it.  It was really cool to see. We briefly contemplated celebrating his tee shot by putting him on our shoulders to bring him to his ball, but it was too far of a distance for us. 

We finished up the round but struggled a little.  The last 5 holes are 3 /1 /7 /9/ 5 on the course handicap.

We checked out the locker room and decided a Ritz-Carlton would probably be a good place to hang out, so we had guests join us and had dinner and drinks.

Other than a few bad reads by Chris the caddie, it was a very enjoyable day.