After my round at Lake Bernadette I got some lunch and watched the final few holes of the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am. I’m a Phil Mickelson fan so it was nice to see him get another win!

After lunch, I made the short drive over to Lake Jovita Golf & Country Club for my afternoon round. The nice thing about where my parents live is that the Orlando courses are about an hour away on the Florida Turnpike while the Tampa courses are about the same distance down I-75! If you live in the Tampa area then Lake Jovita is an easy half hour drive.

There are two courses here, the North and the South, and they were designed around the turn of the century. Tom Lehman and Kurt Sandness were the architects involved with the property.

I booked a tee time on the North, as that was the only course with tee times when I wanted to play. Come to find out, there was a college tournament on the South Course. The tournament made things busy on the North Course and another single and I played in four hours.

The best thing about Lake Jovita’s North Course has to be the land that the course sprawls across! The course works its way over some rolling hills. While there aren’t any massive elevation changes, I did get that “on top of the world” feeling a couple times while playing. Another nice thing about the course is that there are a few ways to play it.

The par-3 4th is one of the holes on the North Course that features some elevation change! From the blue tees it is 160 yards and drops about a club down to a green that is guarded by water. The green is massive and gives you a chance to bail long or right, to avoid the water. If you do that, then you’ll be left with a slick, downhill shot!

Overall, the North’s front nine has a somewhat “linksy” feel to it – although I use that term very loosely! What I mean by that is the front has an open and inviting feel to it, where you can hit it everywhere and scramble some. In other words, my kind of golf!

On the other hand, the back nine is more wooded and requires some precision, at least early on while playing the back. Ideally, you’ll want some local knowledge on the back as the 10th and 11th holes have trees in the fairway.

Overall, the North Course has a very difficult (too difficult for this guy), modern feel to it once you get to the fairways. There are massive bunkers, large greens with tons of contour and about a 500 yard gap between most tee boxes. I had a couple putts where all I was trying to do was die the putt at the top of a ridge or hang the putt out five feet from the hole and let it sweep back. I thought things were borderline over-sculptured, but I’ll admit the blue tees were a bit much for me. The blues are 72.8/135/6863.

The conditions on the North Course were very nice. I paid $50 during peak season which was a good value! The tees and fairways had a light overseed which gave it that desirable “green” look in the winter. I still had those difficult, tight lies which required the perfect strike, so the overseed was functional, but I wouldn’t call it lush.

The greens were pure and quite speedy. The only area where the course looked to be struggling some were along some collars and edges of the greens, which were sanded.

If you like modern golf you’ll probably really enjoy the courses here. I think Lake Jovita is one of those places where if you put it closer to Orlando or Tampa then the green fees would easily double! It would be a quality option to add if you are playing World Woods, or even a day trip from Tampa would be worth it.

Course Pictures (click any picture to scroll through the gallery):