Florida - The Golf

First of all, we had another great trip! We had planned on doing a lot of stuff when we were there, and didn't end up doing most of it, but I wouldn't change a thing - we enjoyed what we did do, and enjoyed the fact that it ended up being a more relaxed holiday than is typical for us.

We had planned on playing three rounds of golf, but only played two. The first round was at a course called Sanctuary Ridge; it was OK, but nothing special - it was pretty unique in that it had a lot of elevation changes, but I wasn't that impressed. It was close to the house though, and well priced, so it was a good course to warm-up on.  I actually forgot my camera (shocker!), so I don't have a single picture to add here.

Our second round was at a course called El Campeon, one of two courses at Mission Inn. This course was a bit of a drive away, but it was beautiful and totally worth the drive! Apparently it was named the 2009 Florida Course of the Year! My dad played this course with us, and I'm really glad that he chose to play here rather than Sanctuary Ridge.

Some shots from our day at El Campeon...

These two pictures needed to be posted on their own, putting them in a collage didn't do them justice...

We got up close and personal with a gator! We've had plenty of gator sightings while playing golf in Florida, but this was the closest we've ever been.

Take a closer look at this picture and you'll see just how close Curt could have gotten - his ball landed just just on the edge of a pond, and about six feet away was a gator (you can see the gators eye peaking out of the water in the background, and Curt's golf ball in the foreground). Curt wanted to play the ball, but the the rest of us weren't in favour of that idea - he ended up leaving it there and playing a new one, with no penalty :) 

And, although we didn't get to play a third round ourselves, we did get to take in a third round - we were spectators at the final round of the Arnold Palmer Invitational at Bay Hill!

Unfortunately, we weren't allowed to have cameras on the course, so again, no pictures to show from our exciting day.

And, unfortunately, Tiger Woods won the tournament.  We didn't see him play at all though (and that was our choice); we saw him a few years ago when we went to the President's Cup in Montreal, and since we're not big fans, we decided to avoid the huge crowd that he somehow continues to attract :)

Some of the more notable players that we did see include: Camilo Villegas, Hunter Mahan, Phil Mickelson,Vijay Singh, Jim Furyk, Webb Simpson and of course, Bubba Watson!

Thanks to our friends, Henk and Amy, we were able to get our tickets through Ang and Bubba Watson - we met up with Angie on the second green and walked the next nine or ten holes with her.  It was great to visit with her, and her mom, who arrived about six holes into the round.

My dad and Gary also came to the tournament, and although I don't think Gary loved it, I'm pretty sure my dad had a great time.  My dad has only ever been to a Canadian Open, which usually doesn't attract the biggest names, so this type of tour event is a little more exciting.  They kind of went of and did their own thing while Curt and I did our thing, so we were all able to see the players we wanted to.

So, it was a great day, and everything went very smooth - from picking up our tickets at an off-site will-call, to parking at Universal Studios and shuttling to the course and then getting around the course.  It was definitely a highlight of the trip!