The new semi-private, 18-hole championship golf course at Providence Golf Club in Davenport, Fla., is a showcase for Winter Park golf course designer Michael Dasher.
The transplanted Atlanta native, now 27 years in Florida, called the Providence course a hybrid.
“It’s part prairie style otherwise known as heathland, part Old Florida and part parkland,” Dasher said.
It’s a showcase for golfers too. The clubhouse, perched on a summit, surveys a magnificent parkland vista that includes the opening and closing holes of each nine as well as the practice green.
“Providence is a very social course and tells a story in its landscape and topography,” Dasher said. “In most cases the tees are in close proximity to the greens and in many parts of the course you’re aware of what’s going on around you,” he explained.
Halfway down the third fairway, the spectacular Florida parkland blends into the big sky of the Florida prairie, framed with native windblown grasses. “Here we tried to create what naturally existed elsewhere on the site. We brought in golden rich sand from the eastern portion of the site and piled it up into big dunes,” Dasher said.
By the sixth, the prairie begins to give way to teeming wetlands and a challenging lakeshore, then it’s classic Old Florida. A running creek bulkheads the short, tree-lined eighth, with a verdant parkland reward awaiting on the ninth as it plays back to the familiar clubhouse.
The back nine transitions again from parkland to Old Florida and then along the entire par-5 fifteenth –– Dasher’s personal favorite –– Providence gives up one of its boldest treasures: a rolling panoramic prairie that spans a geologic remnant of prehistoric Florida perhaps best apprehended right here on a high, sandy ridge formed eons ago when most of the Florida peninsula was covered by water and wooly mammoths plied the landscape.
“A good golf course should be a transcendent experience, challenging the physical and mental skills of every golfer who plays it, then defining the challenge with a unique story that combines the terrain with sensual pleasures of sights and sounds,” said Dasher.
Providence Golf Course General Manager Marion Walker of Kemper Sports Management said the reviews from golfers who have played the course since its opening in August have been extremely favorable. “I believe this is one of Mike’s best golf course designs to date,” said Walker.