Central Florida Spring Training Golf Trip

Golf Magazine, 2/10

Links Magazine

For fans of the:  Braves, Tigers, Astros, and Nationals

Best Public Course: Bay Hill is still King in these parts, but that's a stay-to-play deal, so instead steer your rental car to Disney World's Osprey Ridge (407-939-4653, www.disneyworldgolf.com; $139-$174), a Tom Fazio affair with big, fun greens. It's also practically in the bullpen of Champion Stadium, where the Braves play ball.

Best Bang For Your Buck: Green and bunker renovations completed in January make Falcon's Fire Golf Club (407-239-5445, www.falconsfire.com; $99-$129) a terrific value. Designed by Rees Jones, it's $69 after 2 p.m. and only 10 minutes from Osceola Stadium, aka Astros Country.

Best You Can Play That You've Never Heard Of: The Deltona Club (386-789-4911, www.thedeltonaclub.com; $38-$48), formerly Deltona Hills, is basking in the afterglow of a Bobby Weed makeover. It's 30 miles north of Orlando, away from the baseball, but for muni-style prices and brilliant bunkering, it's worth the haul.

Braves Fans:  Links Mag says play ChampionsGate Golf Club.  Located just a couple of exits down I-4 from Champion Stadium, the Braves’ spring home at the Walt Disney World Resort, ChampionsGate features 36 holes designed by Greg Norman, as well as an Omni resort and the headquarters of the David Leadbetter Golf Academy.

Tigers Fans:  Links Mag says play Lake Jovita Golf & Country Club.  The 2006 American League pennant winners have been coming to Lakeland’s “Tiger Town” for 74 years, the longest spring-training streak in baseball. Located north of Lakeland in Dade City, Lake Jovita features two stern layouts, including one co-designed by Tom Lehman.

Astros Fans:  Links Mag says play Reunion Resort.  Four of the biggest names in golf have contributed to this property south of Orlando. In addition to being the home of Annika Sorenstam’s golf academy, the resort has courses designed by Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer and Tom Watson.

Nationals Fans:  Links Mag says play Duran Golf Club.  Located less than two miles south of Space Coast Stadium in Melbourne, the northernmost of the Grapefruit League sites on Florida’s east coast, Duran Golf Club allows fans—and even players—to be on the 1st tee within minutes of the final out.

ESPN digs the Space Shuttle at the Nationals' Space Coast Stadium, in Viera, Fla.  At the spring home of the Washington Nationals fans find a unified ballpark theme that plays off the region's pride in the nearby Kennedy Space Center.  Most prominent among the park's many nods to the U.S. Space Program is the 13-foot-tall, 350-pound model space shuttle mounted in launch position on booster rockets outside the entry ramp.

"It's a reminder that everything we have in space starts right here," said Buck Rogers, general manager of the minor league Brevard County Manatees, the stadium's regular-season tenant.

Indeed, home plate sits just 13 miles from where the real shuttle lifts off, and on launch days Rogers and his staff gather with fans in the stadium's fourth-floor viewing area to watch the shuttle's ascent.  In addition to the faux shuttle, Space Coast Stadium features foul pole tributes to the lost crews of the Columbia and Challenger tragedies, as well as concession stands with names like "The Orbit Grill" and "The Loading Dock."