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Hernando Today

Affordable Golf Offered at Spring Hill G&CC

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By JIM REDMILE

Hernando Today correspondent

Published: June 20, 2008

SPRING HILL - "Fantastically-unfortunate," a term my cohort Joe DiCristafalo came up with, may be the best way to describe the Spring Hill Golf and Country Club situated just off of Spring Hill Drive, east of Mariner Boulevard at the western intersection of Coronado Drive and Spring Hill Drive.

If you log on to www.springhillgolfclub.com, the description of the course begins, "The Spring Hill Golf and Country Club is a true championship course for all skill levels." We believe this to be true, especially since we had players with three different ranges of handicap playing.

Built in 1967, the website goes on to call this the "grand-daddy" of Hernando county courses.

Many people Joe and I have talked to, including our guest golfer, Jeff Principe of Jeff Principe Painting, believe this to be true. In fact, Principe, our middle handicapper, maintains that Spring Hill, whether from the blues or whites, "has as challenging a back-nine as any golf course in the county."

The course is rated at 71.4. This number is what good golfers like Joe look for when judging course difficulty. The slope is 138, which is rather high, considering the maximum slope rating is 155. This rating is what 25 handicapers, like myself, look at to figure out where they stand against a course. Jeff falls somewhere in the middle.

The course offers tee times from 7 a.m. until 4 p.m., with fees ranging from $25 to $15 a day depending on the time of day. There is a pro shop and a nice lounge, but the day we were there, only one gentleman was working both at the same time, and no food was being served at 2 p.m.

But the course was only in fair shape, with goose grass lining the fairways. Where there wasn't goose grass, your lie may be on a nice fairway or hard-pan. The greens were fair.

"I don't know if it really affected the play," said DiCristofalo, a local artist and fellow golf analyst. "It's unfortunate because this is a really good shot-making course."

A course official stated that they are currently spraying the fairways for the unruly weed, as witnessed by our threesome last week. They will also be aerating the fairways to get the course back in shape in just a few weeks.

"When you go to a good golf course, you feel good, you pick yourself up," said Principe. "It really does break your heart because you know the way it should look. That's a golf course where all of the high schools should have their matches because it is a good golf course, but it's not in the shape to do it. The course is just out of shape.

"Every par-5 plays like a par-5. You can get there, but you need two good shots," said Principe. "There are big dog-legs and a hook dog-leg. There are challenging par-3s. You can take your kids out there and not worry about hitting anybody."

"As long as they are working on it, it's gonna be a great golf course," Joe added.

Since we were told by course officials that the unseemly fairways were much worse than they had anticipated for this summer season and would be treated, we decided to go back and have a look. Sure enough, the fairways are being tamed and the greens are coming in.

Most Florida courses use the summertime to prepare for the start of the next season, which in Florida, may not be until late fall, or early winter.

"It's a very affordable, very challenging golf course," said Principe. "Golf Spring Hill, and you won't be dissappointed."

Course rating: T T T

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