Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I had four days off for the Thanksgiving holiday and spent three of those days closing in on golf course No. 950. I found a discounted tee time for $56 at Eagle Creek Golf Club – course No. 947 – and thought I’d give it a try.
Eagle Creek is on the southeast side of Orlando, not far from the airport. It wasn’t convenient to where I was traveling from, but it would be a good consideration for those traveling through MCO. The area is probably most famous for the esteemed Lake Nona Golf & Country Club which is only ten minutes away. If anyone reading this post can hook me up with a guest round there one day it is a course I’d love to see!
Okay, back to Eagle Creek. My tee time was at 9:30 AM and I got there plenty early. I checked in and then hung out by the starter, hoping to play in an earlier group. Sadly – at least for me – the starter said the course was packed. He was not joking either.
I paired up with three other golfers and we began our journey around Eagle Creek. We finished at 2:30 PM, after a torturous five hour round of golf! The pace moved fine on the front but we waited for every shot on the back nine. Needless to say, the pace of play had me quite salty. Gotta love Orlando golf this time of year, sheesh!
So the pace wasn’t good at Eagle Creek and unfortunately, neither is the setting. Homes line every single hole and while the homes are pushed back from the edges of the rough, I thought they took away from the golf. If there was more of a natural buffer between the homes and the course it wouldn’t have been so bad.
On a positive note, I thought the design at Eagle Creek was fine. The course is a Ron Garl/Howard Swan design that opened in 2004. The fairways are gigantic while the approach shots and short game shots get trickier. Because of the generous fairways and close proximity to the airport, Eagle Creek could be a decent option for the first round of a golf trip. The coolest feature about the course are the dozen or so deep, stacked sod bunkers which dot various holes. I never ended up in one, but someone in my group did and made an incredible escape.
The only gripe I have about the design is the similar yardage of all the par-3’s. I played the white tees which are 72.5/128/6841. The course is a par-73 with four par-3’s and five par-5’s. I found the par-3’s to be the toughest holes because they are all long and have difficult green complexes. The yardages are 195, 182, 201, and 183 yards. I only hit three and four irons, boring. I enjoyed the par-5’s, though.
The conditions were well worth the price I paid and I’d call Eagle Creek a good value. The course had a dried out look to it but some areas appeared to be overseeded and were softer. While the tees were a bit worn, the fairways had good coverage and the greens were nice. The greens rolled smooth and at a medium speed. The course appears to get a lot of play based on the number of divots and pitch marks.
I feel like I may have been unnecessarily harsh in my review, but the super long round put me in a bad mood. Overall, Eagle Creek is playable and has a couple cool holes. I really enjoyed the risk/reward par-5 13th and the par-3 17th since both bring water into play. However, there other mid-tier courses in the Orlando area I’d suggest before Eagle Creek. As usual though, try it yourself and see what you think.
Course Pictures (click any picture to scroll through the gallery):