Lake Nona Golf & Country Club: Home To The Pros
©Lake Nona Golf & Country Club.
Sorenstam, Ko and Maguire are all residents of the Lake Nona Golf & Country Club, a 600-acre facility full of towering oaks, pines and native cypress trees, surrounded by more than 1,000 acres of freshwater lakes. The private, 18-hole championship golf course was designed by Tom Fazio.
The golfers were drawn to Lake Nona for its top-notch greens, social aspect and proximity to Orlando International Airport.
Annika Sorenstam has been a resident since 2000.
“I just love the simplicity of living in Orlando and love the people,” says Sorenstam. “When I get home, I don’t want to travel, I want to disconnect.” Lake Nona helps her to do just that.
Lydia Ko first moved to Orlando when her coaches were based in Orlando. While looking for practice facilities, she heard about the greens at Lake Nona and came out for a visit. That was all it took.
“The team here does an unbelievable job of making sure the course is in good shape,” says Ko. “I think the greatest thing about Lake Nona is the membership. They really understand us as tour pros—we’re not like a lot of the members who are here all the time. We have a very supportive community.”
©Lake Nona Golf & Country Club.
Interaction with others—and the weather—were factors for Leona Maguire.
“After college, I weighed all my options—I wanted something similar to the environment at Duke and its great practice facilities,” says Maguire. “I stayed at [golfer] Justin Rose’s home for a week, and I really liked the atmosphere, that the members were people to practice and play with in off weeks, to keep sharp. And, being from Ireland, I really wanted something warm and sunny.”
No expense was spared in designing the golf course, which was always meant to be the centerpiece of the Lake Nona community, says Matt Collis, director of golf at the Lake Nona Golf & Country Club.
“Three lakes hug the last six holes of the golf course,” says Collis. “Looking at it from the real estate [perspective], it would have been a more financially beneficial place to put houses across those lakefronts,” he adds.
Instead, the land became the course’s last six holes, some of Lake Nona’s most iconic, including hole 15, its signature hole with a long par five around Red Lake.
“The layout and the condition of the course is very special,” says Collis. “We use rye grass in the rough and Poa trivialis in the greens, fairways and approaches and that gives us a phenomenal green golf course. The aesthetics and playing conditions are fantastic.”
“I think that’s a big reason why players come here,” he adds. “Players can come in during their off season and play a golf course that feels like it would in the middle of summer for them.”
©Lake Nona Golf & Country Club.
Currently, Collis says that 42 golf pros—active and retired—call Lake Nona home.
The golf club has a long history of hosting LPGA events. It opened in 1986 and just four years later hosted the inaugural Solheim Cup. In 1993, it hosted its first major men’s event, the World Cup of Golf. In July, it will serve as the final qualifying site for the U.S. Amateur Championship
