For those on vacation purely just to golf, or those who just want to hit the course to relax, Highlands Reserve houses one of the nicest courses in the area. People from all over come to see how the lie of the famous Florida green can spin the ball just enough to drop that even par. Luckily for you that experience isn’t more than a 400 yard par four from your front doorstep. The challenging Highlands Reserve Golf Course can allow the every day golfer a chance to play like the pros at a reasonable expense. Its vast layout, combined with its beautiful scenery caters to anyone interested in having one of the best days on their next vacation. Along with several other courses in the area, Highlands Reserve Golf Club serves as the perfect outing spent on the perfect vacation.
Highlands Reserve Golf Club was nominated by Golf for Women Magazine as one of their 50 top courses. Golf Pac, one the country’s largest golf vacation travel companies, ranks Highlands Reserve as one of their most requested golf courses year after year as chosen by their customers. Mike Dasher’s Highlands Reserve (opened 1998) is a piece of land that’s unlike most everything else in the region, topped by a spirited design that matches the property’s unique character. The course sits on the edge of a long sand shelf called the Green Swamp Ridge near the town of Davenport spanning 120 feet from top to bottom. Dasher’s holes fairly dance around it, two-stepping from a high point at the first green all the way to the low basin of the 13th fairway.
Dasher’s diverse, uncommon design punctuates the distinctiveness of the natural site. The tidy tournament yardage of 6,673 will not overpower or intimidate anyone, but the routing keeps the player engaged with three sub-400-yard par-4 starting holes, back-to-back par-5s at eight and nine, several potential drivable par-4s for long hitters, one-shotters ranging from 100 to 225 yards, continuous changes of direction, and holes that provide the option to work the ball left or right or simply go for broke over a hazard.
January 70.8 48.6 2.30 February March 78.0 55.2 3.21 April 83.0 59.4 1.80 May 87.8 65.9 3.55 June 90.5 71.8 7.32 July 91.5 73.1 7.25 August 91.5 73.4 6.78 September 89.7 72.4 6.01 October 84.6 65.8 2.42 November 78.5 57.5 2.30 December 72.9 51.3 2.15
Accompanying all this is one of Orlando golf’s three or four most sporting set of green complexes. “The design really begins at the greens,” Dasher says, noting the design’s roomy fairways. “We did not put in any USGA green, that’s all native soil and they’re basically all push-up greens.” Most are open to the fairway and fall away into chipping and drainage lows on several sides. The variety of size, shape and orientation is staggering; the first green is 52 yards deep and roughly 12 paces across with a swale across the center; the third green is tilted and almost perfectly round; five is crowned and elevated, a perfect foil for the short pitch shot approach; number nine green features upper and lower levels; the remarkable 10th offers a front left pin location sunk nearly three feet below the test of the green; the 16th fulfills the promise hinted at the first. Modeled after the Gate hold at North Berwick, the Biarritz green is 53 yards deep and cut in half by a trough roughly two feet lower at the center than either the front and back. “I’ve always been looking for a place to do that, and that’s where I decided to do it,” says Dasher.
Did we mention that Highland’s Reserve Golf Course is fun? It’s also one the few courses in Central Florida where you can throw your bag on your shoulder and walk.
In every way Highlands Reserve Golf Course is the antithesis of the typical Orlando course; it’s not even of the same gender. Power players, the corporate crowd, and the Lake Nona types may criticize it for its length, for being a little proletariat around the edges, or for the housing development on the perimeter. They’re missing the point. Highlands Reserve is sporty and original and its diversity is a blessing to repeat play.
Between November and April green fees are $47-$49 for Florida residents, $66-$69 for non-residents. Off-season rates are $31-$34 for residents and $37-39 for non-residents.
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