Falcon's Fire Golf Club

Falcon's Fire Golf Club has been voted the best public golf course in Orlando by Orlando Magazine, is a Four Star Golf Digest award winner, was listed as “Best Golf Course in Florida” by Florida Monthly, and is included in America’s Top 100 Golf Shops (Golf World Business Magazine) for several years. Rees Jones designed a fun and challenging layout with:

• extensive perimeter mounding
• gentle but fast undulating greens
• excellent conditions
• 140 light fluffy white sand bunkers of all shapes and sizes
• water on 12 holes
• colorful and well maintained landscaping
• tree lined fairways
• fairway grass bunkers just waiting for your shots

Falcon's Fire reopened in October 2009 after undergoing an extensive $1 million renovation which included a complete overhaul of all the greens (adding more challenging undulation and Tif-Eagle grass), a redesign of 128 traps (reshaped and made more impeding but more visible), and resculpting the fairways to bring the bunkers much closer to the perimeter of the fairways – all of which added more shape and character to the holes and made playing Falcon’s Fire more psychologically demanding and a true test of your golfing prowess!

The layout is pretty straight forward and what you see is what you’ll get but Falcon's Fire puts a premium on club selection, course management, and shot making. From most of the tee boxes you to need a precise landing to stay dry or out of the sand and accuracy is required on most approaches to the greens which are surrounded by trees, mounds, bunkers, or water. On some holes you’ll find some challenging risk reward or go-for-it opportunities. #13 is a good example, a 394 yard par four that horseshoes around a sparkling lake to a small oval green protected by the lake and a huge bus sized bunker. How much of the lake do you want to risk carrying and landing without hitting any of the "Bunker Hill" and its 15 bunkers leading to the green? Make sure you save some strength and distance for the 18th – a 464 yard par 4 dog leg left to a slightly elevated small green.

When we played in February, the course was dormant and over-seeded except for the greens. Two weeks of unusually cold and harsh weather had impacted the conditions the week prior to our playing. We still found the fairways and roughs to be in very good condition. The greens were in excellent condition, hard and fast with both slope and some undulation. Putting didn’t seem to be an issue.

Bottom line, Falcon's Fire is an excellent course, very fair, and one where you have an opportunity to score well if you can keep the ball in play. We played Falcon's Fire as part of a fun filled seven days in Orlando where we rode in an Indy race car, saw alligators on an air-boat ride, sky dived in a wind tunnel, flew a 1946 World War II fighter trainer, para-sailed, swam with the manatees, ate too much good food, enjoyed some fun nightlife, golfed 9 different courses, and got very little sleep! Read our Orlando Vacation article to learn more about this adventure packed vacation.