Highlands Reserve Golf Club — Local services in Four Corners

Can’t fault the course. It’s amazing, easily my favorite golf course in central Florida.

Had a terrible experience today. On the third hole we witnessed a crash landing of a hot air balloon in the middle of the fairway. Delayed us 25 minutes, no problem, check that one off my golf bingo card.

4th hole tee box the ranger comes by, asks us to please fill divots as they’ve been having problems with people not filling them and he’s just making his rounds. No problem, I let him know that we were delayed by a hot air balloon on the third hole and would be way behind pace. No problem, he assured me, and we continued on.

Make the turn, ranger pulls up and tells us that we need to pick up the pace, there are two empty holes ahead of us and a line of people behind us waiting. I remind him we are not behind pace and were delayed by an errant hot air balloon. He tells me it doesn’t matter and we need to pick up the pace.

10th hole he pulls up to another in my party and tells him that we need to pick it up and skip the next two holes. My partner pushed back and said that we were not delayed by our playing, the delay is out of our control and we would not pick up the pace. We paid for 18 holes, we will play 18 holes. Mind you, the tee box behind us is empty and we are at the green—no one was held up. Photo attached of the empty tee box immediately after we were confronted.

Thr ranger threatened to have us trespassed from the property for defying his authority. Way over the line and a total ego trip.

This totally ruined our game. Any golfer will tell you that a round will be ruined if your head isn’t in the right place. This ranger messed up our game, and the back nine was abysmal. We couldn’t stop commiserating about it. It would be one thing if we were at fault or if I hadn’t informed him prior that we were delayed by an anomaly.

I have nothing but great things to say about the staff at the clubhouse, cart attendants and the starter from Jersey. The course is amazing. We mentioned this experience to the clubhouse staff and they were really apologetic, noting that we ended the round on the high end of pace despite the delay. This was just a really frustrating experience. I’ve played this course a dozen times and send a lot of people from out of town to play. I’m not sure that will continue after...

Course itself wasn’t bad, it’s not very challenging. The course has almost no water hazards and barely any bunkers.

The worst experience was the starter employee was very aggressive with ruling in regard to rental clubs (to be fair, but didn’t have an issue prior rounds) which rentals are also $50.

For our group, this aggressive interaction to start the day while he sat there smoking a cigar was far from great. Many of us are now turned away from returning to this course.

Edit: With a reply from the Owner, this is not a great response to a review that had issues with your business.

This was my first experience at the course, the prior rounds were some buddies who I golfed with that stated they had never had issues as stated above.

I can promise you that starter was smoking a cigar, whether or not you as the owner see it, did indeed happen. Understaffing can happen as to why there may be no cart person, again is an understandable thing to happen.

As I stated before, policy is fair and rentals were fine to be asked for. The aggressive manner in which it was handled in is the issue. Also yes rentals are listed $45 but with tax comes out to $50 so I’m not sure why there was a correction for that.

Changing the review to 1-Star, I understand if you disagree with a review or may be confused for what is said. But to come at someone for a review as the owner in such a way is unbelievable.

As stated before( especially now) I would not golf here if this is how the owner reacts to their customers. Reach out and figure out why a customer is having an issue or bad experience and maybe explain things if they’re misunderstood.

Understand standing by your business, but my original post wasn’t attacking the course or saying it was bad. Just not as challenging as...

Played a round here today. When we called to book a tee yesterday we where told to book it online, which didn’t make sense but we did it anyway. They gave us some coupons and told us we would get a free hotdog once we had finished the game. Sounded good to me, coz I like hotdogs. Anyway, completed a decent round of golf. Went into the clubhouse afterwards for a beer and our free hotdogs. When I asked for them the blond girl behind the bar checked our details and agreed to get us our hotdogs. Now at this point I bet your mouth is watering coz I know mine was, I was well up for this hotdog. Mean while the blond girl started talking to her colleague about her ex husband and the fact that she was unable to work at certain times because he would not have the kids! Meanwhile I’m just looking at her thinking....just get me a hotdog, paying customers don’t need to know these details. Our partners turned up to pick us up, but the plan was to get them some lunch before we left. Bought the girls a drink but guess what still no hotdog.......they where right there......just lift a couple out and slide them into a bread roll. But the blond girl was now on the phone. That was the straw that broke my back. I was nearly in tears but we left......without the hotdogs.....gutted. My advice to you all who read this is. The golf side of highlands reserve is great, however the clubhouse side is nothing to write home about. Forget highlands reserve try MYSTIC DUNES GOLF for one of the best experiences you will ever...