White Heron Golf Club

First rate well maintained course. Amazing practice area. All at an affordable price. The staff makes sure you are comfortable and goes all in to see that you enjoy your round.

I played on 10/15/20. It was might first visit to this course. This course is located in a retirement/snowbird community. So, you would think that the course might be designed with a below to slightly above average golfer in mind, with 50+ years of life experience. Nope....absolutely terrible layout. The course is doomed to failure because not many people are going to play this course a second time. Let me start by saying the course was completely revamped and re-opened in March 2020, according to their website. We played from the white tees, about 6300 yds. And the conditions were average to above average. Several poor condition tee boxes but good greens that rolled true. So, who will enjoy this course? Well, if you like hitting irons off the tee to 20 yd wide fairways, then hitting woods to reach greens that are still 200+ yards out, then this course is for you. Hole 7 requires about a 160 tee shot to the dogleg right fairway turn, leaving you 225 yds to the green, with a 20 yd wide fairway the entire length. Alternately, you could hit driver, but you must carry to 230 to 250 yds over 30 to 60 foot high oak and pine trees. Did I mention houses and OB down the right side, next to those trees? Hole 11, max drive distance of 210 to 220 or you wind up in the lake or the pampas grass. Again, 20 yd wide fairway. If you did that correctly, you have a 170 to 180 yds to the green and the fairway narrows to less than 15 yds wide. Not the end of the world, but it get worse. Hole 14, dumbest of all holes in my opinion. Tee shot max length is about 180 yds to end of fairway. Again, dense pampas grass and deep bunker awaits a too long drive. Now, break out the woods because you have about 200 yds to the green with NO fairway from this point on. Hole 15, a short par 3, has a pot bunker IN THE GREEN. I think it should be called, "The Clown's Mouth bunker". You can literally hit a tee shot onto the green and then be required to chip OVER the bunker. Alternately, you could putt left or right around the bunker leaving you at least 30 feet from the hole, based on the pin position on the day we played. Finally, on 18, a drive over 200 yards must land on a 10 yd wide fairway or be lost in the wetland on the left or the canal on the right. The fairway is reasonably wide at about 35 yds up to 200 yds from the tee box, then abruptly narrows to 10 yds. If you enjoy using your driver, this course layout will steal your joy. Oh...and a couple more things....who ever provided the pampas grass made a fortune. They are everywhere along the edges of fairways. These are large clumps of 2' tall grass, spaced about a foot apart. Any ball hitting into these areas has a 90 to 95% chance of being unplayable or just lost. Did I mention water on nearly every hole? Water is everywhere and well hidden from view on several holes. A ball 2 yard from the fairway on many holes may be completely unplayable. The people running the course were very nice and helpful. The carts are AWESOME, quiet, fast and have an absolutely necessary huge GPS display with aerial depictions of the holes that are essential unless you've played this goofy golf course four or five times already. You'll need to refer to the GPS pictures because water is well hidden. Wait, I forgot to mention, the carts have black vinyl seats. Hello, McFly!!!!....this is Florida.!!! Bring a towel to sit on or prepare to sear your thighs and butt if you play between May and November. Greens rolled true and reasonably fast. Trap sand was perfect, white and fluffy. Fairways were mostly good except for a few wet areas. Unfortunately, I don't think even perfect conditions will bring out the golfers to keep this course viable. There are just too many fun golf course options in this region of the state. If attendance gets too low, maybe they will offer a free round for a tee shot into the clown's mouth on 15.

WOW! I played here yesterday MonJuly 27,2020. Only played here once before about 3 years ago, and it wasn’t that nice. Now, it’s almost a ten! Def a 9+. Incredible job, pristine conditions. Greens, tee boxes fairways, are beautiful and challenging. carts are all new and have luxury leather seats, with nice size laptop GPS, they’re fast smooth and quiet. The cart paths are all new entire length of the course, no 100 ft of pavement that drops off into a mud or dirt road. All the landscaping is gorgeous . The bridges are new. Def a must play . I play whatever is a hot deal on golf now, and this was a smokin deal for under $20. Now that I’ve played here, I would play it again for $40. It’s that nice. I heard they spent $5 million on it. In my opinion it’s nicer than southern dunes four miles down route 27 and one third the price. Wish I could post some pics on here. Great job guys.

We played White Heron several times while staying with our friends that live across from the course in The Golf Villas. The course was in great condition. Also, it was never that crowded the days we played. One night after the course was closed, we were walking our dog on the cart path near our Villas and a grounds keeper drove up and asked us to leave. I explained that we were staying at the Villas, but he told us to leave and walk back to the street. Because of this, we played our remaining rounds at Southern Dunes Country Club that was about a 10-minute ride away. South Dunes was $6 more per round but it was a much nicer course. Also, it had a great restaurant called The Tavern on the Dunes which is something White Heron does not have. The Tavern was even open for dinner with a prime rib buffet on the weekends. Coming back one night from Southern Dunes, we spotted the same grounds keeper sleeping in his cart near the right side of the club house. We should have stopped to take a picture. White Heron is in good condition but after playing several rounds at Southern Dunes in Haines City, we will return to that course next time we come down to stay. The workers of White Heron are going to have to be a little nicer to the residents of Ridgewood Lakes and The Golf Villas if they want to make a go of it. After being kicked off the cart path only a few minutes from our villa, they lost our Foursome for the rest of our stay. 4 stars for the golf course but only 2 for the workers.

First time playing the course and I was greatly pleased! Had a late morning tee time and unfortunately was about 20min late do to traffic build up from and accident. Called ahead and Brian was very understanding and told me to just get there safely. All staff at the clubhouse were friendly and personable. A handful of groundsmen were very respectful as while. Course was in beautiful shape and greens were on point. Fairways played a little wet but that’s do to the constant watering, but 125% better than other courses in the central area. I would definitely recommend this course and will be back before my move out of state!