GOLF ALONG FLORIDA'S EMERALD COAST

I recently played four rounds of golf in four days along Florda's Emerald Coast,Destin/Fort Walton is the area, its near Elgin Air Force Base.

It was mid-November, the week before Thanksgiving, We had excellent weather and no crowds. Both are important, you can count on light crowds that time of year, but the weather is always a crap shoot.

If you enjoy playing golf, there is somehting speial about putting together several back to back days of golf. The more you play, the better you play (for the most part).

If you don't improve each day, make sure you're playing with folks you like, it makes it easier to laugh as your golf balls roll into the lakes and ocean.

If you're considering such a trip, I have several tips for you.

Tip 1 is timing. If you can go when the crowds are light it makes it easy to get T times, tables at restaurants, drive up and down the beach road and make your way to the beach for sunrise and sunset. Both the sunrise and sunsent were a treat on this beach because the beach faces the gulf (of America) so you can see the sun come up to your left and down to your right.

Tip 2-prepare for it, physically.

Make sure you're back, legs and core are ready to play four rounds in four days. No kidding, golf is no fun if you are in pain on day 3. In the 4-6 weeks leading up to our trip I walked more, did some core excersises and a little strength work.

As our golf planner was making the plan for us, he did something very smart, this is Tip 3-a food plan our host made sure we had access to food. When you play four rounds of golf in four days you need good food, plenty of water and snacks.

This area of Florida has grown significantly over the past 4 decades as has all of north Florida so in addition to having a few things in your fridge there are great restaurants. If you were here in the tourist season, you might have a tough time getting a table but no problem this week.

Our lunches were typically at the clubhouses. I talked about day 1 and the fried chicken and pimento wrap. Day 2 was hot dogs and day 3 & 4 was sitting on the deck at the Kelly Clubhouse plantation eating a burger or club sandwich.

Cost of lunch was typically under $20 plus a drink.

For dinner, along with the Crab Trap on night one, we enjoyed an early dinner on night two at The Edge in the marina. We had dinner at the Florida Fish house and Boshamps.

Good food and drinks and fankly not that expensive. Budget 20 for breakfast, 30 for lunch, 50 for dinner, you will have money left over.

We also stopped by the donut hole for a donut and for key lime pie. We had to try the pie because one of our golfers said it was the best key lime pie he ever had. We bought the pie (under $20), it was good. I'm not ready to claim it champion, but it was good.

Our group of four can be best be decsribed as duffers. We're not gonna win club championships but we enjoy playing and do so often. The trip organizer picked three courses, we played the third course on days 3 and 4. Frankly, I enjoyed getting two cracks at the last ccourse. Day four was my best round and seeing the course a second time helped me improve my score significantly.

Here's my take on the three courses.

They were all traditional Florida courses. Lots of water and sand. Each course had a few holes that played along the Ocean, I'll share some of the views in a photo gallery.

Each course had very good practice set ups and good pro shops.

On day one we arrived at the Destin/Fort Walton Aiport and headed to Regatta Bay for 18 holes.

If you play Regatta bay from the tips its under 6900 yards, we did not play from the tips. With a group of varying skill sets we played just under 6000 yards. This was plenty.

It was mid-November and this course was in good shape. Good fairways and fringe, but the greens had a good bit of sand so the putts seemed slow.

The pace of play was OK, we ran into one slow group but we were still able to finish the round in 4:10. This mattered becasue we started the round at 12:30 and sundown was 4:50, we just finished before dark.

This course cost around $100 for 18 with a driving cart. If you like to walk, the courses are very walkable but walking is discouraged. The solution is to walk while you're partner drives.

Off to dinner and a good night's sleep.

The next morning we started our day with breakfast at Whales Tail on the beach and a 9:50 T time. This was perfect. The course was Emerald Bay. This was likely the better of the three courses. from the tips it was 7050, for us just under 6000. Again you had water, sand and ocean.

As I noted, none of the courses were crowded. Mid November meant a lack of tourism so you were only working around the locals.

Another nice course for average golfer, it cost us around $150 for 18 with a drive cart.

Because the course was not crowded , we finished our round in less than four hours so we headed to the Fort Walton Marina to hang out and eat at the Edge.

Day 3 and 4 had our T times at Kelly Plantation. The longest of the three courses we played, Kelly Plantation plays 7100 yards from the tips. Its flat, easy to walk, lots of water, lots of sand and a few good views around the bay.

The greens were in decent shape was were the fairways. This course has nice design and its very playable.

It will cost you around $160 a round.

One nice surprise at Kelly Planttion, chilled apples are available as you head to the 10th T box.

I would recommend all of these courses.

Given that golf is an expensive habit, as is eating you have to prepare for these trips.

The golf and food cost us around $250 a day or roughly $1000 for the trip.

Housing was taken care of, we were hosted by one of the group members, but if you were splitting hotel rooms you're gonna be out another $1000.

We flew in (on points) and had people on the ground with cars, if you don't have that, you'll need to add that cost as well.

Hope this helps.