Florida Keys Country Club Review

As we continue our south Florida RV travels we are currently staying at Jolly Roger RV Resort in Marathon Key, Florida.

And we are quickly learning that if we want to play golf in the Keys, there are precious few options. After a few discussions with veteran RVers here in the park, we decided to play a round at Florida Keys Country Club.

We did a bit of google searching and learned that Florida Keys Country Club is a 6,500-yard, Mark Mahannah designed golf course. Even more importantly, it is just a quick 15 minute drive from our RV park!

Florida is known for some fantastic golf courses and some pretty horrific hurricanes.

And sometimes….those two things collide.

Which is exactly the case in 2017 with Hurricane Irma and the Florida Keys Country Club.

On Sunday, September 10, 2017, Hurricane Irma made a direct hit on the Florida Keys, making landfall at Cudjoe Key, 20 miles north of Key West, as a monster Category 4 storm packing 175 mph winds.

The hurricane held seven trillion watts of energy, twice as much as all the bombs used during World War II!

Even though we know about hurricanes and the devastation they leave in their wake, we figured it was 5.5 years ago, surely the course would be ok now – right?

That was not the case!

Upon check-in at the Pro Shop, we were greeted by the lovely and very friendly Letty. Letty was cheerful and full of information about the course and first-hand memories of the destructive aftermath of Hurricane Irma.

Letty told us the 18-hole course was built on a former mangrove swamp. It was a thriving country club and golf course before Irma’s destruction.

More than 200 trees were destroyed on the course, tearing up the irrigation system and the hydraulics. The eight-foot storm surge swamped and ruined the entire fleet of golf carts, along with tractors and fairway mowers, spreaders and sprayers.

Pointing through the window, she showed us where course management agreed to let the city of Marathon and FEMA use some of the course land area as a temporary dumping ground before the trash could be hauled away. At one point, there were yards of debris piled up, including ruined stoves, refrigerators, washers, dryers and air conditioners. It really was the only big space in town after the storm.

Sadly, we see the clean-up has taken years and is still on-going.

What remains of Florida Keys Country Club is a 9-hole course, with two sets of pins on each green for playing 18 holes if desired.

At the first tee we noticed immediately where the fairways were once flanked by lush mangroves, have now been re-landscaped by Irma.

The course was mixed in its conditions.

Some greens were in great condition and some still had turf missing.

Along the fairways palm trees were either snapped off or uprooted. Some fairways were more of a cart path with packed sand than an actual field of grass, and some of the fairways are scarred and still healing.

We had some good shots, and we had some shots that were hindered due to the ongoing repairs on the track.

We decided right away that completing an 18 Holes and Counting Score Card for this course would not be fair to the course, nor to those who are doing their best to get it up and playable.

Even though we felt the course is still in the healing process, our game was enjoyable and we were happy with the end score!

We are only in the area for a couple of weeks, so we probably won’t be playing Florida Keys Country Club again. There is just so much more to do in the Keys!

Fairways and Greens – We are 18 Holes and Counting!

Written by: Kathy Festa