Water world: hazards abound at PGA National.
If you want to play the best golf course at PGA National Resort & Spa on a Florida golf vacation, make a tee time at its Champion Course.
Having hosted the Ryder Cup in 1983, the PGA Championship in 1987 and now the Honda Classic (being contested this week), this George and Tom Fazio-designed — then Jack Nicklaus redesigned — course is indisputably the five-course property’s best.
It’s a long layout, made all the more difficult by persistent, swirling winds and water that comes into play on 17 holes. The back nine, the best loop at the resort, features two exquisite, and nearly identical, par threes: the 15th and 17th, with semi-island greens guarded by daunting water hazards.
Along with the par-four 16th hole, they are known as the “Bear Trap,” a do-or-die stretch akin to Augusta National’s Amen Corner, and one of the hardest three-hole sets you can play on a Florida golf vacation.
Aside from courage and upwards of $200 ($115 in summer), the only other thing you must have to play the Champion Course is a room at the resort as tee times are only available to its guests.
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