The Hickory Golfer

A lot of people will head down to Florida for spring break to get away from the final onslaught of winter. Both coast of Florida offer a number of wonderful historic courses to play but who wants to go play a classic Donald Ross course with a cobweb swing of winter. Where can you go to warm up that swing and still have fun.

If you are on the St Petersberg peninsula I have a couple of suggestions: one I’ll mention here and another in another blog. In the south of the peninsula there is a charming muny 18 hole par 3 course that has everything you need to get your game jump started. The Twin Brooks Golf Club in Gulfport is close to Interstate 275 so it’s easily accessible from almost anywhere.

The driving range is excellent for hickory golfers. Well it doesn’t have the softer balls but the max yardage is around 225 yards with gigantic net at the end to capture your bombs. Of course you are suppose to be warming up so why on earth are you hitting a driver. Just focus on a mashie on down and you’ll be fine. There are plenty of targets at a various distances so you can start to dial in your distances. One warning: I think the mats are used on the weekend so don’t come to hit on the range then.

As for the course it will give you all you can handle with it’s pint sized greens. The fairways are nothing to talk about. The only good thing you can say about them is you will learn how to hit off of spars conditions. But the tee boxes are plush and the greens will take you back to an era when you actually had to lift the ball when you struck it. You don’t need anything more than your 150 yard club. For me that meant I took 6 clubs out on the course. I got plenty of work on 70, 90, 110, 120 yard tee shots with a couple of long shots at 140 and 150 yards. The greens are all elevated and as I said smallish so take dead aim for the middle. Misses carom off the sides, sometimes massively.

If you are looking for the historical side of this site, it has been confirmed that Al Capone owned this land back in his boot legging days. Rumors in the club house say he had the facility made for his boys because they were a bit to rowdy for a regular golf course. I think that is kinda doubtful but who knows it might be true. The course is now the home of St Petersburg First Tee program. The weekends will see quite a bit of activity from that group but during the week your safe.

I can play 18 holes in around one and half hours if there is no one on the course and then follow it up with another 30 minutes on the range and be done for a morning work out. While the putting surfaces are heavy it’s still a good place to start. The morning is full of dew, as you can see in the pictures, so I’m sure in the afternoon the greens are better. All in all it’s a great place to find your swing for the rest of the vacation.