This is a solid course, but could be better without the housing around it. Course hosted the US Women's Open in 1969 and the course makes certain anyone who plays here knows that. As far as being walkable, Scenic Hills is as easily walked as a course routed through housing like this can be. Most of the holes are high on options, allowing for ground play at times and requiring the high lofted shots at others. The only negative is that, while walkable, the course requires that non-members take carts. While this course isn't anything really special, it is a solid public course and a good value.
Holes to Note
Hole #1: Par 4, 443 yards
This is a very solid opening hole. Playing substantially downhill off the tee brings the effective yardage down much lower than the card yardage. The fairway is also quite wide, giving the player a generous target even though the hole plays between houses on both sides of the fairway. The preferred angle of approach into the green will come from the left side of the fairway, allowing the player to avoid the bunkers that protect the right side of the green.
From the left side of the fairway, the green, while being a small target, is accessible with a straight forward shot, and the player could even attempt to roll the ball onto the green.
However, from the right side of the fairway, the angle of the green is not quite so inviting and a slight push for players going for the center of the green will likely find one of the two flanking bunkers.
The green is nicely perched up, falling away into the bunkers on the right, a depression on the left and a bunker awaits beyond the green for those players suffering from a lack of distance control.
Hole #13: Par 4, 357 yards
This is a fancy little mid-to-short par 4. The tee shot has to carry a water hazard, a hazard that was likely unavoidable in the design of the course as it is part of the Escambia River watershed area, but the hazard is not that difficult to cross, a mere 100 yards from a back markers. The hole itself bends to the left and the fairway will kick shots down towards the left side of the fairway. However, the player looking for the easiest approach into the green had better play his shot up the rigth side so as to not be forced to carry the two bunkers lying in wait off the left side of the green.
From the right side of the fairway, the player is left with a simple, straight shot into the green, most likely with a wedge in hand.
Hole #17: Par 5, 507 yards
This very scenic par 5 provides the player a great chance to make a birdie coming home in the round. The hole plays virtually straight, although an arguement could be made that it is a double dogleg hole, going slightly right from the tee and then back left into the green. The green can be reached in two shots by the longer players. However, the player wanting to go for the green in two shots must play close to the dual purpose bunkers down the right side of the fairway. These bunkers are effective in two ways: first, they force strategic from golfers who are attempting to go to the green in two, and second, they act as saving bunkers for the less skilled golfers, possibly keeping the tee shot from going down into the hazard.
From the left side of the fairway, the player gets a solid view of the significantly elevated green. Any player attempting to reach the green in two shots is going to have to navigate a field of bunkers, both surrounding the green and flanking the fairway about 50 yards short of the green. The best play into the green, for those normal players not hitting a 6 or 7 iron, is a draw that lands short of the green and rolls up. That shot however will have to thread between the greenside bunkers.
For the player choosing to lay up, once again the right side of the fairway provides the best line into the angled green. Obviously any shot that comes up short of the putting surface or is struck with too much spin is liable to roll back off the green a significant distance.
Overall, this is a solid little golf course. With exception of the houses running down the holes, there are only a few negatives. The course does have one feature that always irritates this writer to no end and that is the forced water carry with no strategic value. The 11th hole has a forced carry of a creek that is in the range of 400 yards off the tee, giving no strategy to the tee shot, and also some 150 yards short of the green, offering nothing to the green either. No, the creek merely sits there offering no thought or strategic interest to the player with enough skill to easily carry it on the second shot (and it must be the second shot because, lets face it, there are perhaps half a dozen people in the world who could reach it off the tee) and yet offers nothing but a huge penalty to those golfers who struggle to get the ball into the air and make the carry. Those golfers must either attempt to make a tough shot and possibly dunking a ball into the water or lay up short of the hazard leaving a shot into the green that they likely can not make. No, forced carries are fine, but not like this.
Other than that, the course is solid. It has solid variety in all the holes and an understated character that is sadly missing from many new courses. 4 out of 10.
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