COURSE
REVIEWS
Royal St. Augustine
Golf & Country
Club
By Derek Duncan,
Senior Writer
ST. AUGUSTINE, FL - For years the residents of St. Augustine were limited to two adequate but uninspiring golf courses: St. Johns County to the west of town and the abysmal St. Augustine Shores. They could also chose to work the resort angle at either the Radisson Ponce de Leon or the handful of posh tracks in Ponte Vedra thirty minutes to the north, but these expensive options hardly seem appealing for the everyday player. For a state so overrun with golf outlets, St. Augustine was stuck on the hind tit.
In the late 1980s, the development of the Palm Coast community courses 15 minutes to the south alleviated some of the pressure, but St. Augustine's halcyon days wouldn't begin until the late 1990s. Happily, they are still enjoying them as 99 new golf holes have been constructed since 1997, all within a 20-mile radius from downtown.
World Golf Village
got the area
jumping with
The
Slammer &
The Squire
course, followed
next by The
Golf Club at
South Hampton,
nine new holes
at St.
Johns County,
The King &
The Bear course
at World Golf
Village, and
St.
Johns Golf Club.
These courses
are all situated
along the I-95
corridor just
west of town,
no more than
15 minutes apart
from each other.
The course that
immediately
appeals to most
St. Augustinians,
however, is
Royal St. Augustine,
which opened
for play in
May 2001.
Royal St. Augustine brings the city up to date with everything that is happening in golf course architecture at the beginning of the 21st century, both good and bad.
|
On the other hand, the course is horribly routed, disjointed, and packed into acreage far too small for a golf course of its type. Because it's crammed into various segments of property ill-suited for golf, many of the holes feel tight and claustrophobic, at times bordering on the unplayable.
This is not entirely the fault of architect J. Christopher Commins. Royal St. Augustine suffers from the same malady as many modern golf courses that are built primarily to sell houses, apartments and condominiums: in tight corners the developer will sacrifice golf course land for lots.
A University of Florida graduate who learned the business under Mark McCumber and played valuable roles in the design and construction of many Jacksonville-area courses, Commins is certainly capable of designing strong, vigorous golf courses given adequate room and resources. But with environmental restrictions added to predictable land shortages, Commins must have felt as if his hands were tied. To make up for space, he slathered the holes with every conceivable feature, moved earth, and shaped extensively. Water or wetlands come into play on 16 holes.
Incidentally,
tied hands are
what the player
feels far too
often at Royal
St. Augustine.
At the 5th,
6th, 12th, and
13th holes there
is hardly room
to play. The
targets are
small and deceptive,
and missed shots
are penalized
in the extreme.
The 151-yard 6th is not a bad par three, nor a difficult one, just awkward. An iron must be played from an exposed tee over a wetland and through a gap in the trees. Depending on the markers, part of the green might be obscured from view, and the shallow putting surface, angled left-to-right, is fronted by a bunker and backed by another. In some ways it's an attractive hole, one that was probably influenced by the 12th at Augusta National, but it lacks any real presence or grace.
The 12th, at 504 yards, is a reachable five par along a dense wall of trees on the right. The fairway is exceedingly narrow for the drive with no rough left or right to speak of. Anything slightly off line will kick irretrievably into the thorny underbrush (you can try to go in there, but bring along plenty of band-aids). To the left, the trees give way to water on the second shot, so nothing but extreme accuracy will work here.
Where the 12th
was only suffocating,
the 13th is
simply awful.
Of all the new
holes built
in St.
Johns County,
this has to
be one of the
worst. No hole
at Royal St.
Augustine better
illustrates
the negative
effect of over-development.
It's a par four
of 399 yards
that doglegs
90º left
around a lake
at the 200-yard
mark.
To make matters worse, there is another lake through the fairway to catch anything hit too far or too straight, practically ensuring a long iron or fairway metal into the bunkered, elevated green. Apartment complexes and the visitor's center, protected by a massive safety net, adorn the hole's left side, and busy Highway 16 serves as the backdrop. Something is terribly wrong with the planning if safety nets are required on golf holes.
It's difficult to say if the routing could have been executed any differently or if the land could have been better used, but playing Royal St. Augustine is akin to riding with a teenager learning to drive a stick shift.
The first hole is down the street from the clubhouse, and one through four run naturally in a loop before returning to near the first tee. The fifth tee is actually closer to the fourth tee than it is to the fourth green. The fifth, a short par four, is another hole that's wedged into an area too small. It's situated mysteriously on it's own piece of land and crowded with perimeter mounding and two water hazards, the second of which is in the line of play but can't be seen from the tee. The tight and elevated green is tucked into a point at the end of the hole where anything missed in either direction will bound sideways into the scrub.
The sixth and seventh are found several hundred yards from the fifth, across a road and backwards, and the eighth and ninth are across the road again in the central area of the course. The par three 14th, like the fifth, is a sore thumb that requires a backtrack from the previous hole to the tee, a drive up through the condos to the green, then another drive back past the tees and across another street to the 15th tee. Yes, it is confusing.
Yet in all of
this there are
some fine holes
and features
that reveal
Commins understanding
of some finer
points of golf
design. The
shaping of the
first green
and chipping
area behind
it is commendable,
as is the shaping
of the fourth
green and the
area directly
in front.
It would have been impossible to build a long golf course on this site so Commins and crew didn't try. They settled for a comfortable championship distance of 6,529 yards and a par of 71, including the unconventional outward nine of 35 that includes three par threes. There are two wonderful, short par fours, the 3rd and the 16th.
The 357-yard third challenges big hitters to cut over or around the pines on the inside corner of the dogleg right, a high carry of about 250 yards. Most players will hit an iron out to a position in the fairway and wedge it in from there.
Sixteen is even better at only 339 yards. Drives play out over a lake to a broad, undulating fairway. A wide bunker fronts the right of the green and makes a right side pin placement a tricky up and down. The best angle in is from the left, but a fairway bunker guards this route, so accuracy is rewarded, but not mandatory.
Royal St. Augustine
should be exciting
to St. Augustine
residents who
have awaited
such a course
for years. There
are nice features
here and so
far the conditioning
is everything
one could desire.
Commins has
probably done
as much with
the flat, restricted
land as possible,
but one gets
the feeling
it was a no-win
situation from
the beginning.
Once its newness
wears off it
will be difficult
to recommend
the course to
travelers over
the other fine
and equally
modern layouts
only minutes
away. Regretfully,
the space confinements
and several
terribly forced
holes might
become too much
of a handicap
to overcome.
Then again, perhaps no one else will notice.
Location
Royal St. Augustine is located west of downtown St. Augustine at Highway 16 and Royal St. Augustine Parkway, five miles east of I-95.
Rates
Green fees are $38 weekdays and $46 Friday through Sunday. St. Johns and Duval County residents pay $29 and $37 for weekends. Twilight, member, and senior discounts are also available.
Walkability
It's tragic. Royal St. Augustine might at times allow players to carry their bags, a rarity among Florida courses, and the course is short enough to make walking an appealing alternative. But because of the fragmented routing, long stretches between holes and too many double-back paths, it's recommended that carts be taken.
Royal St.
Augustine Golf
& Country
Club
301 Royal St.
Augustine Parkway
St. Augustine,
FL 32095
Phone: (904)824-4653
www.royalstaugustine.com
[an error occurred while processing this directive]
