Featured Golf and Travel: Florida
The TPC Sawgrass Stadium is a well-known golf course in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida, and was the inaugural Tournament Players Club. Sawgrass has two courses, the Stadium Course and the Valley Course, and is also home to the PGA Tour's headquarters. The Stadium Course at the TPC at Sawgrass is home to The Players Championship, the PGA Tour's flagship event, and is widely regarded as one of the toughest golf courses in the world. Opened in 1980 and designed by noted golf-course architects Pete and Alice Dye, the Stadium Course was revolutionary for its radical "stadium" concept -- like in other sports, fans at the TPC sit in "stands" made of raised mounds of grass -- and for its fiendishly difficult design. TPC Sawgrass' signature hole is the Stadium Course's 17th, known simply as the "Island Green", although it is technically a peninsula. While gorgeous to view, the hole has been known to scare even the top professional golfers. It measures only 132 yards (121 m) from tee to green (requiring only a pitching wedge for most pros), but consists of nothing but an undulating, 78-foot (24 m)-long green and a tiny bunker in front of it. Save a small path to the green, the rest of the hole is completely surrounded by water, and its location amidst a canyon of trees causes the wind to swirl over the green. Club selection at 17 is a huge consideration, as there is nowhere to land the ball but on the green – or in the water. It is estimated that over 100,000 balls are retrieved from the surrounding water every year, courtesy of professionals and tourists alike trying their luck. (Article sourced here from Wikipedia.com) (Click Here to see our Slide Show):
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Golfing Destinations and places to Play in Florida by Region: |
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Bay Hill Golf Club
The Bay Hill Golf Club and Lodge private golf resort in Orlando, Florida and annual host in the month of March to the Arnold Palmer Invitational - a PGA Tour golf tournament. Bay Hill Club and Lodge, a private golf resort in Orlando, Florida Bay Hill which has been owned by Arnold Palmer since 1976 and where he has his winter home. The event was founded in 1979 as a successor to the Florida Citrus Open Invitational, which was played at Rio Pinar Golf Club on the East side of Orlando. It has had a number of different names since then, most of them including "Bay Hill." The tournament was played for the first time under the Palmer name in 2007. As a restricted field event on the PGA Tour, only the first 70 players on the previous year's money-list are guaranteed invites. Tiger Woods won what was then known as the Bay Hill Invitational four years in a row from 2000 to 2003. This is one of only four occasions that a golfer has won the same event four times in a row on the Tour. In 2004 he was one shot off the lead after opening with a 67, but followed up with back to back 74s on the Friday and Saturday, and ended the final round on Sunday in a tie for 46th place. Woods then won the 2008 and 2009 tournaments, both times with birdie putts on the final hole.
(Article sourced here from Wikipedia.com) (Click Here to see our Slide Show):