Your humble writer here is a muni golfer. I grew up playing military courses with my Dad, an Air Force officer, but these days almost all my rounds at home are on municipal layouts. I’ve never joined a private club – not that I wouldn’t if the circumstances worked out, but my muni and military background suits me fine.
The rough and tumble course, Forest Lake, I play often around Orlando was purchased by the City of Ocoee in recent years after three decades as a privately owned daily fee course. For a frequent break from the Flake, as we semi-affectionately call it, I get out to the nine-hole Winter Park Golf Course, another muni, as often as possible.
But I haven’t made it out to WP9, as Winter Park’s course is known far and wide, as much this summer as in years past because the greens were accidentally killed in the spring, forcing the course to utilize temporary putting surfaces. That has all been resolved, thanks to a hot spring and summer of effort by architects Riley Johns and Keith Rhebb plus a crew of course shapers who pitched in while already in Florida…