St Lucie Port in Florida is so popular as a golf vacation destination because when it’s cold outside golfers often start dreaming of hotel golf resorts like the ones at St Lucie Port. You know the kind of place where it is warm, has wonderful courses and has great service. One such hotel golf paradise at St Lucie Port is the P.G.A Village, which costs less than $200 a night.
While the costs are very affordable this resort should not be overlooked. Prior to its recent renovation its courses were listed among the top courses to play by Golf World, Golf Digest and Golf Range Magazine. The courses are known as the Dye course, the Ryder Course and the Wanamaker course. These courses are played by over 1300 P.G.A professionals each year.
The Dye course is a par 72, which is 7,150 yards and an 18 hole course which consists of mostly Bermuda grass. This golf course was designed by Pete Dye. It originally opened in 1999 and with numerous hills and bumps this course proves to be very challenging to play, especially for a golf hotel course. This course has an open bowl effect that takes advantage of the great scenes of the wetlands this course was developed on.
The second course available in this golf hotel package is the famed Ryder Course, which was designed by Tom Fazio and has been awarded the Audubon’s signature status award in 1996. The course was completely renovated and reopened in October of 2006. The major change was that the greens were lowered. The course has fewer bunkers than it previously had, but the bunkers that did remain were made more challenging. With this reopening came the new name of the Ryder Course. Formally this course was known as the North Course.
The third course available in this golf hotel package is the Wanamaker Course. This Course was named after Rodman Wanamaker who is the department store magnate who founded the Professional Golf Association in 1916. This course, arguably the hardest of the three, also reopened in October 2006 with golfers having a choice of playing the full 7,102 yards or they can choose the shorter 4,960 yard course. Visitors will also enjoy visiting the P.G.A Center for Golf Learning & Performance where golfers can enjoy instruction from professionals in this world class facility. Another attraction for visiting golfers is the nearby P.G.A Museum of Golf. At the museum visitors can see the four major championship trophies, Walter Hagen’s unique driver, many volumes of written material on golf – including some from the 16th century and the P.G.A hall of fame.
So the next time you want to sing ‘baby its cold outside’, just book your next golf vacation to the P.G.A Golf Village at St Lucie Port, Florida. After all, how many places can you play three championship courses, get instructions from top golf professionals and visit a golf museum – while staying at a top notch hotel golf facility.
