Cove Cay Golf Club

Worst course to play. If you enjoy bad attitudes, rough fairways, and greens, and the majority of this course smelling like a sewer, then this is the place for you. However, if you're looking for a well-maintained facility with friendly staff, I would recommend avoiding this course. The owner seems to struggle with hiring the right people to run and maintain the place. Additionally, the marshal's lack of attentiveness can be frustrating. The trash cans are not even properly maintained, and there is trash everywhere, including cigarettes and animal poop all over the greens.

Positives:

-Located in Pinellas County

-Greens were good

-Pace of Play was great. Even on Sunday, no waiting.

-Rough is brutal with tight fairways

-Carts were brand new and all-electric

-The view on the last two holes is beautiful.

Negatives:

-This is a 50-year old course and feels it. Trees have been allowed to overtake the course. It is in serious need of trimming back to make it playable.

-It’s a very tight course wedged in amongst several condo buildings. Not particularly scenic.

-Maintenance is minimal. Tee boxes are chewed up, weeds everywhere including fairways and greens.

-It was Sunday and several fairways were not mowed. That’s unacceptable.

Conclusion:

The course is ok but not great. Feels old. Seems a little overpriced.

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This course is awesome, I’ve played here many times and this day I only played the front 9 and it was raining off and on most of my round, but it was still worth the wet. I’ll be back!!

The course is nothing like the pictures. There are maybe 3 holes along the water, with everything else being amongst condominiums. The starter said we were the only group to tee off on time (we were standing on the first tee at our time, 10:18am, and didn't hit a ball until 10:30).

This is a short course and it is within a gated community of older folks so be prepared to wait. The course was in decent shape but almost every green had large patches of fresh sod that were not fully grown in.

The transfusion from the cart girl were also $20 each.

Overall, not the worst experience but do not be fooled by the picturesque photos online. This is a typical muni course with tight fairways and holes right on top of each other.

Greens were awful. Very little grass. Many greens had burnt out areas. Greens need watering. Not a flat surface for many pin placements.

May as well be putting on cement because that’s how fast they were

Pace of play was awful. Waited every shot.

Stopped at the restaurant at the turn and that was a disaster. First they said card only and no cash. Then cash only because their machines were down. Wanted us to leave the card because they needed to hold on to it because they couldn’t run the order through. At 12:00 on a Saturday they should have had it up and running.

Manager or whoever was working with the waitresses was nasty and rude.

Wouldn’t recommend this course. Carts have no GPS.

Great course, great layout, if you can only play one public course in Tampa this is a great option.

Rather difficult course if you have any slice or draw on your ball. You can pretty much leave your driver in the bag. Elevated greens on most holes added another level of difficulty.

Course conditions were pretty good. Tee boxes weren’t terrible. Some greens were a bit patchy but manageable. Only 2 holes had water view which were on the back nine. Pictures on site make it out to be very waterfront heavy. Oh well!

Interesting hole setups. Water and sand around the course but not too penal. It’s only 6100 from the back tees which I’d recommend for all sub 25 handicappers. Anything else will be too short for you. Tees and greens were in great shape. Standing water in sand traps was puzzling but they may have just got rain the night before. I’d definitely come back.

TLDR; This is the place to golf if you like golf and a challenging course.

We played a few courses during our vacation in Florida. This was the third course we played, and we immediately realized it was the course we should have played 3 times, instead of wasting our time on the other courses.

The Good:

1. The greens are amazing, smooth, the balls roll in a predicable pattern, albeit fast.

2. The tee boxes and fairways are great.

3. The carts are super luxury, with cushy leather seats.

4. The staff was exceptionally friendly.

The Not So Good:

1. There are no touch screen displays in the carts (like the Seminole course.) (I don't expect this, it just would have been an added bonus.)

2. The sand in the bunkers sucks. It was very soggy, very hard. Ball did not really sink in. (I don't know why, sand type, weather conditions?)

Little SOB at the front desk ran his mouth at us for being on time as opposed to early. If i didn’t hate my wife so much and want to play he would have been violated by our group. We let him live but also the starter and the cart girl were fantastic. But seriously, let me catch Christian outside the course and he gon get it,