I was in Watercolor for a family reunion last week. Watercolor is a beautiful area between Destin and Panama City Beach. You can rent a home from 360 Blue or direct with the Watercolor Resort. It is a perfect area with about 10 golf courses within a half-hour drive and perhaps another 5 or 10 within a one-hour drive. It is a great location for family or for a golf and beach week with friends.
When visiting the Florida Panhandle It has become sort of a tradition the past 3 years to review the Sandestin Golf Courses. Due to reasons I will not get into and why I will probably never return to Sandestin and it was time to revisit one of the best-known courses in the Panhandle areas, Kelly Plantation Golf Club. A Fred Couples design, Kelly Plantation is one of the premier golf courses in all of the Florida panhandle. The course is a par 72 but the back nine has three par 3 and three par 5 holes. I reviewed the golf course and the video (at bottom) is from Saturday, September 14th, 2024.
In a gated community, when you arrive at Kelly Plantation, you feel like you are entering a private club. No matter what entrance to the club you take you are driving through beautiful tree-lined streets. Once you arrive at the club you are greeted by a large driveway with a circle drive to the bag drop where the first of the staff will welcome you. This is also where you get your first impression of how you will be treated.
The staff at Kelly Plantation is exactly what you'd expect at a high-end club. Everyone was friendly, welcoming, and professional. This was especially true for the bag drop staff and the starter. They are very organized in their duties and make sure you have everything you need before you start your round.
Before you get to the golf course itself you have a wonderful practice facility to get you started. A large putting green, driving range, and chipping green with bunker gives you everything you need. A great place to warm up or fine-tune your game.
The golf carts are nothing special compared to other golf courses but they are very nice and clean with comfortable seating. Each had two sand bottles to fill divots and a cooler for any extra drinks. Something that came in handy as the beverage cart only accepts cash and I somehow managed to lose my cash somewhere on the driving range. I was able to use a card in the grill and put some drinks in the cooler for the round.
The golf carts also have one of the most sophisticated GPS I have ever seen. They have very good graphics for the hole layouts and I found the yardages to be very accurate. However, what stood out to me was the approach view. On any given hole when you switched to the approach view, it would show the hole location like it would on a paper hole location sheet (pictured below). Each hole showed how many yards from the front and the left or right edges the hole location was on the green. I have never seen any other GPS have that feature before.
There was plenty of rain the entire week and I was expecting the golf course to be cart path only. To my surprise, there were only two holes that were cart path only. The golf course drains very well and with the exception of balls not rolling out in the fairways you could barely tell the golf course got rain for almost a full 5 days prior to the day I played.
Overall: 4.5 out of 5
Tees: 4.5 out of 5
The tee boxes are some of the best I have ever played. They were level, cut to fairway height, and the tee markers were lined up pointing you in the direction of the hole. Every hole had the cart path near each tee box as well. The design placement was very well thought out as no matter what tee you selected to play the cart path passed each one. No walking back to the tips or long walks across other tee boxes to get to your selected one.
Fairways: 4 out of 5
The fairways were almost a 5 out of 5. The main reason they are a 4 is because they were so soft leaving very little to no roll. They were also not as tightly cut as I feel they probably are on a normal dry day. They were still cut very tight and better than many courses that don't cut their fairways this low on a good day. There were also some areas where carts were causing some wear at the start of the fairways. This was only on a few holes but it was noticable. Not so noticeable it looked horrible but noticeable enough for me to comment.
Greens: 5 out of 5
The greens were for lack of a better word perfect. The speed was very good. They were quick but not so quick putts would get away from you. The undulations on the greens look subtle but the breaks are anything but. If you hit a putt with the proper pace you had to play more break than you saw. Some putts would break a good 2 feet when it looked like only 1 foot. The greens were also very smooth. Usually when greens are soft where balls hit and stop the greens get a bit spongey and sometimes a bit bumpy. That was not the case. Yes, there were some unrepaired pitch marks but not many and none affected any putts. If they were a little faster they would be considered tour quality.
All in all, I really enjoyed Kelly Plantation. The rate is a bit on the pricy side and you can expect to pay $150+ to play there. The conditions alone almost justify the high rate but they could make some things better at that rate. Their website says complimentary refreshments and a barrel of apples at the 10th tee. I did not see that. For any golf course that charges over $125 they should include a bottle of water for each guest or allow guest to run a tab on a credit card with the beverage cart.
I will return to Kelly Plantation and hope the course is playing drier than this visit. I really look forward to the challenge the golf course can create if the course is playing firm and the greens rolling a little faster.
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