Esplanade at Azario Lakewood Ranch

Immaculate experience! I’ve got nothing bad to say about this course or it’s condition. The greens were a bit slow but that’s to be expected during a dry season of no rain. Beautiful course and great layout. The cart guys were extremely friendly. 100% recommended playing here!

Azario at Lakewood Ranch has a great layout but has some issues. The first is the rough, if you are not in the fare way you find yourself sitting a combination of dirt and bits of chunky grass. The fare ways were in good shape. The greens were slow and that was a good thing due to the extreme undulations in a number of the greens. The worst part was slow play due to lack of marshals. The group, two in front of us was all over the course and subsequently everyone behind them had to wait. We waited approximately 3 to 5 minutes for every shot. There were several holes open in front of this group. The bunkers and traps were in good shape with an appropriate amount of sand. That being said I managed a low mid 80’s round and had a reasonably good time!

Course was in great shape. Layout was challenging, yet enjoyable. Greens had a lot of undulation and played a little slow. Magnificent scenery. A must play!

Greens were somewhat shaggy and not smooth on your putts. Tee boxes were shaggy.

If you want a challenge on putting this is the place to go. Lots of humps in the greens, making it extremely difficult for a better than average golfer to get close to the flags.

I love this course. It's my favorite in the area and for the track itself, it's worth the cost.

That said, when you're paying $140 for a round during peak season, IMO, that price implies that in addition to a great track, you're going to get a nice comfortable cart that comes with GPS. You're lucky if you get that 50% of the time. Mostly gas powered with no GPS, which is fine - but then don't charge such a high rate. Plenty of times my twosome has no GPS while the other twosome in the group has it.

Also, if you get there early to use the range and facilities, the starter WILL push your group off early if they can. If you say no, they'll tell you that you can wait and play at the end of the day. Also not a HUGE deal but at that price, use of facilities and warmup is implied.

I hope they make necessary improvements with these small details. They matter.

Pros:

Amazing layout

Fun challenging greens

Perfect fairways

Houses don’t feel tight to the course

Cons:

Slow play

Construction going on with housing development

Cart was a gas cart with no GPS.. last time I was there we had super nice EV with GPS

Cart girl was not pleasant.

Everything was fine except:

Pace of play- Over a five hour round with no ranger on coarse.

Carts did not have range finder

First off at 7:36 so pace was wide open.

Pros: great staff, tee boxes and fairways were great.

Cons: greens are young and need time. They aren’t responsive, and are rock hard. Green 10 is so wonky and needs to be reworked, you shouldn’t need a gap wedge to get from one side of the green to the other.

Halfway house wasn’t staffed when we rolled through and there really isn’t a great spot post round to hang out and have a drink. I honestly think there is plenty going for the course but at $140 there are better options out there forsure.

The course was great the staff from start to finish was better.We had a very enjoyable day playing blue/white combo. Absolutely will be back!

Good track with plenty of water hazards.

Greens were verticut and top dressed recently, so they were slow but smooth. And pretty firm.

Good mix of holes. I’d go back.

Great course excellent fairways boxes and greens. Greens many different tiers that protect the course. Fun challenge. Expensive but worth the price. Play this course before it goes private.