Cabot Citrus Farms — Attraction in Florida

Update : Horrible experience. Has anybody who actually works at Cabot tried to walk the course? Went there last week w a golf group of 12. We’ve played Bandon Dunes and others. People at Cabot are like a restaurant owner that has never tried his food. $450 plus caddy tip. They moved our group (that had some coming in from out of town and was planned for months) from Squeeze to Caroo the day before our rounds which screwed up our tee times as we were playing 27 that day. Old World Woods was $85 w carts. Now w Cabot it’s just 1 food truck outside thats not open before 11am. Took 30 minutes and 3 shuttles to get a mimosa before we teed off so no time to check out practice facility or putting green. Someone that worked their grabbed my buddies bag and put it 100 yards away on a push cart and didn’t bother to tell anybody so he’s scrambling to find his bag right before he tees off. Bulldozers and multiple maintenance carts parked in fairways and driving through fairways while you’re teeing off. Ground under repair literally everywhere. Me and all my friends shot in low 80s. Still a 5.5 hour 18 hole round. Never waited on group in front. Walked over 15 miles in loose beach / construction dirt in 1 day. Course isn’t set up to walk but you have to because they are a “prestigious Cabot Farbman course”. They have carts but you can only use them in the summer when it’s wet and the carts would tear up the course. When it’s dry, like now, you have to walk because they are a “Cabot Farbman course” too prestigious to have carts even though there is nothing but construction everywhere. Best marketing and branding department on the planet. Total joke. Had to keep getting rulings from caddy’s about the ball being in waste area up against the lip of a bulldozer tire track lip. Other caddies were apparently moving other competitors balls for them. No way for anybody to really know what to do since it’s all construction if you aren’t in fairway. But they want full price! Bandon Dunes has 1 course that’s “a tough walk” according to Bandon. It wasn’t really hard at all. And Bandon had a shuttle for 1 part to bring golfers to tee form previous green. And in Bandon the walking trails have gravel or something. Not just loose dirt everywhere. Cabot needs 15 shuttles. You literally walk off green and walk a half mile to next tee box passing 3 holes on the way. 1 picture shown is us walking off the green (aprox 30-40 yards behind us) to the next tee at least 100 yards ahead, if you zoom in you might be able to see the tee, and they’ll tell you on here the longest walk to the tee is 35 yards. They will say they are proud of their course. Yea, we know. We know because you charge Pebble and Bandon prices. You do have a lot of dirt ill give you that. Total tourist trap. If you want to be miserable on an otherwise nice course go for it. But there are a lot of nice courses in the area. Play them for a 1/4 of the price instead. Cabot cares about the influencers they pay to review the place, their grandiose plans for the future, the view of the course from the helicopter. They don’t care or consider the customers experience at all. I don’t think I’ve ever paid so much to play a course with such fun greens and just wanted to just leave after 9 holes before.

Previous Review I totally forgot about:

Bunch of typical new age screw the customer bs. Don’t ever prepay. They literally have no phone number to call to talk about a rain check or reschedule. A bunch of AI bots running the overpriced show. Me and 3 buddies have been calling for days trying to talk for somebody about our rain check, refund etc. Don’t support...

As someone who grew up in Pasco county I was blessed to be able to play the old world woods courses many times over the years. What they’ve done to the property is really disheartening and it’s turned into some sort of streamsong junior from what was once a really unique experience in the forests of central Florida. Nostalgia aside the reason for the lower rating comes down more to the experience than the fact they’ve destroyed one of the best properties around.

Keep in mind I don’t advocate not going. It’s definitely an experience and if you like big expansive waste areas and comical greens then you will probably love it; however, my experience wasn’t what I’ve had at other high tier destination courses. We played Karoo.

The price is what it is, but for that kind of money you can definitely go to better courses. Brooksville isn’t exactly a tourist trap and its best feature is proximity to Tampa. These days I-75 south is awful and you’re looking at 3-4 hours round trip depending on the time of day.

They made a huge deal about these refillable water bottles but none of the water stations worked and there was no beverage cart at all. Considering there are very few shady spots make sure you have plenty of your own water cause it gets hot on the course.

We were approached multiple times by the starter while on the front nine and when making the turn. I can’t stress enough how ridiculous they made the green complexes and even with a foursome of +handicap golfers there are times where a three putt is playing well. This invariably leads to slower rounds and even though we were 10 min behind pace we never had the group behind us waiting. We honestly never even saw them after the first two holes, but this guy was up on the tee box with us trying to hurry us along. It was my friends birthday and for $300 a round I don’t need some grumpy retired bloke breathing down my neck all day for no reason. The best part was him telling us he had instructed the group behind us to catch us when we were on the tee at 10 since they were on pace for a 5 hour round. They showed up to the clubhouse about an hour after us but doesn’t negate that we had to deal with ranger rick the whole front nine for no reason whatsoever. Once again they never waited to hit the entire round.

A caddie on adjoining holes with a different group picked one of our balls up. Granted it was blocked right what kind of caddy just picks up a brand new prov1 and keeps going? He didn’t even say anything til we point blank asked since we saw where it ended up. May not seem like a huge deal but when you’re playing for money the lies out there can matter. Especially in the sandy areas.

The greens are just laughable. They are new so don’t expect anything to respond to spin and they are so comically large and undulated. This may be personal preference but I don’t care for a course where a 15 foot birdie putt you have to play for a 2-putt because there’s a swimming pool sized crater between you and the flag. Just feels needlessly gimmicky

Overall for that kind of money it felt soulless and like they had hired a bunch of northern seasonal workers from New York and Michigan to come down so they don’t drive their partners insane all day long. Needless to say I won’t be coming back and if we decide we want to go play Florida sand courses on a boys trip - streamsong in Polk county is by far the...

I feel compelled to write this review after reading mixed reviews the last few months. I don’t think I have written a review on anything in the last 10 years, but this place was truly special. We just stayed and played here (Thursday-Sunday). Everything from check in Thursday to check out Sunday was close to perfection. This was our 4th annual Golf Trip-Ryder Cup style 16 guys (all 35). Check in was seamless with 2 very nice ladies (1 of the ladies picked me up at 530am Sunday for check out) and the guy who helped us unload was also super nice. We were able to check into one of the houses early and put all our stuff before the round. The cottages were immaculate-if insects get in its because you left the doors open. We stayed in 3 4 bedroom cottages- 5-6 guys in each. We 100% got the best cottages #1, #3, #4 that backed up to driving range and putting. Lights on till 11:15 each night. I don’t think I had a bad bite (food was very good) all weekend-grange hall, comfort station, bbq, Mexican, and Pizza. The entire staff went out of there way to make you feel taken care of. As far as the golf-I thought it was tough with all the sand but beautiful and really different. Maybe 2 super weird pin locations per 18 holes. We played the Karoo and Roost twice. The Wedge was amazing at night-probably start around 7pm and finish when its completely dark. We had a 10 hole playoff at the squeeze which is very similar to the other 18 (but its without all the sand)-honestly some people said this was their favorite. Negatives pace of play-who’s fault was this? Ours.. we played the green tees because 3/16 guys wanted to hit driver. Play the Tangerine. They have tee times all day from 730 on-inevitably you will get caught behind some slow pokes like us with so many groups going out-I would try to get the earliest of the day if pace of play is everything to you. We used Carts and we were still slow. The ranger was stern but professional with telling us to keep pace-when you have multiple guys shooting 110+ there is only so much he can do. Can’t remember all the caddies names but they were all nice and knowledgeable, but Connor was awesome and a bro. I think Blake and Trey were also great. Dave was the caddie that went head and shoulders above and beyond. We all consider him a friend after this weekend. Ask for Dave and thank me later (but only if you tip well). Pro Shop was awesome and had great hours so you could go early (630am) or late after round (7pm). If you found this course because of social media (like me) and it looks like disneyland for golfers-let me tell you it exceeds expectations-we have been to Pinehurst, we have been to Kiawah-this place was legit. I am very high maintenance and they honored every request in a timely fashion (can I sample this potato salad, can I have weird sauce on the side, can you have a cart at my house early, can you bring a cart in 5). No hidden fees-in the comfort station or food trucks after I said put it on my room-literally 10 different they said “gratuity will be added are you ok with that” This staff has been trained up. Smiles for all 3 days and young and energetic crowd. All the reviews say this place is going to be special in a few years and we will be definitely be back, but this place is...