JACKSONVILLE BEACH, Fla. - Nearly a year of renovation work has created a municipal course at Jacksonville Beach Golf Club with emerald dwarf greens, lots of water hazards and wicked greens that are huge, wildly undulating and smooth.
The golf course just reopened the first weekend in October, so the greens have some growing to do before crews can shave them for speed, but you certainly can see their potential.
Jacksonville Beach Golf Club is a great muni where walkers and beginners are welcome. Lessons are readily available with plenty of instructors and room, with two practice greens and 17 driving range stations.
Jacksonville Beach Golf Club - hole 1
The first hole at Jacksonville Beach Golf Club starts off over water. As part of the city's storm water retention system, water is a common theme on the course.
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Jacksonville Beach Golf Club: No. 1 green
The first green at Jacksonville Beach Golf Club is a riot of swales, mounds and ridges, both next to and on the green.
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Jacksonville Beach Golf Club - hole 6
Jacksonville Beach Golf Club describes this ravine, across the sixth fairway about 120 yards from the green, as a ditch. It's much more than a ditch. Enter it, and your ball will neither exit nor be retrieved.
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Jacksonville Beach G.C. - hole 7
A line of palm trees at Jacksonville Beach Golf Club gives you a target for the seventh green.
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Jacksonville Beach Golf Club - no. 8
A large water carry separates the fairway and the eighth green at Jacksonville Beach Golf Club. Several holes converge behind the green, creating a visual disturbance.
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Jacksonville Beach Golf Club: No. 10
The 10th tee at Jacksonville Beach Golf Club overlooks a new and enlarged retention pond that runs the length of the hole. But there is a lot of room on the fairway.
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Jacksonville Beach G.C. - hole 13
The 13th hole at Jacksonville Beach Golf Club starts and ends with water.
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Jacksonville Beach Golf Club: No. 13 water
Water wraps around the 13th green at Jacksonville Beach Golf Club, requiring enough to clear the water in front but not too much, or you'll find the water in back.
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Jacksonville Beach Golf Club: No. 14
The 14th hole at Jacksonville Beach Golf Club, a par 3, involves a green with water front, left and rear and a bunker right. And if you look up at the palm tree, you'll see a few balls that never made it back to the ground.
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Jacksonville Beach G.C. - hole 15
There is another water carry to get to the elevated 15th green at Jacksonville Beach Golf Club. The predicament comes as a surprise as one comes around the dogleg right.
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Jacksonville Beach Golf Club: No. 16
The revamped 16th hole at Jacksonville Beach Golf Club starts with an elevated tee across water.
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Jacksonville Beach G.C. - 16th green
The 16th green at Jacksonville Beach Golf Club has a new pond in front of it. The bulkhead makes it pretty clear whether you cleared the water - or not.
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