When we had first been looking for a place to buy here in Florida, we had tried the are around Miami, had looked at Naples and sample what Orlando had to offer. We had also explored Black Diamond Ranch north of Tampa, but were taken with a development called Lakewood Ranch near Sarasota. We made a trip over here to explore but soon realsed that, nice as it was, Lakewood Ranch was just too big - it even has its own hospital and then had 4 golf courses, as well as a polo ranch and a cricket field!
It was then that the realtor who was showing us around signposted us to University Park and the rest is history...
All of which means that we have never been able to play the Lakewood Ranch golf courses at all... until today. Bucking the national trend, they have just opened their latest golf course, called
Esplanade. This forms part of the latest community and, once the majority of the houses have been sold, will also turn private. For now though, it's open to the general public and we were therefore delighted to give it a try today.
The three of headed over there and had a really fun game. It was very hot (approaching 90deg, unseasonably warm for November in Florida) but we very much enjoyed playing what was still a relatively immature course, but with plenty of open fairways. It was challenging, without being too tough, and is definitely somewhere to which we shall return.
On this occasion, it was the son who took the money: we are now quits for the holiday! Back home in time for Andrew to drive up to Tampa airport to collect girlfriend Aggie, who is going to be spending the next week with us.
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