Mickey Smith-The Villages most prolific golfer? 2/21/2017 update

Located an hour NW of Orlando, The Villages with its 630 holes is the largest collection of holes in the world. They have 12 championship and 36 executive courses (2 more are under construction) all nicely manicured and decently designed. I have in the past few weeks played all the courses but not all the holes as 10 of the championship courses have 27 holes.

All but a couple of the courses are designed by the Cliffton Golf Design Group out of nearby Apopka, FL. The executive courses I find more challenging from the back tees than the championship. The championship courses are a resort style design with some mundane holes interspersed among a few good ones. I understand the philosophy here, with the millions of rounds played they need to move the golfers along. It would have been more interesting to have had more variety of design from several architects. It does get a bit boring for me looking at essentially the same design characteristics hole after hole. My favorite Championship course on the property is the Palmer designed Legends course. The executive courses have green complexes designed the same as the championship so there is not a drop off in difficulty. The Roosevelt/Truman complex is my favorite executives due mainly to their rolling topography. I enjoy walking and usually do so on the executives but the design of most of the championships have a few long hikes between some holes.

One might think with that many holes it would be easy to find a tee time. With about 115,000 residents, of which most play golf, 99.5% of the 10,000 daily tee times are filled each day during the winter season. If you are a single you can get on somewhere everyday, but if you wish to play with friends you certainly will not be playing everyday. In 2016 there were 3.072 MILLION rounds played, 2,241 holes in one, 770 Villagers shot their age, and nearly 8 million cart miles driven on the golf courses alone!!  Of course at The Villages there are hundreds of other clubs and activities to keep you busy. It is a fun, friendly place to live or visit.

I had heard about a gentleman who routinely plays all 36 executive courses every month and that he had been doing this for several years. When I played at the Lopez Legacy course, I unknowingly met him as he works there three days a week at the bag drop. Luckily, near the end of my tour of all the courses I was paired up with the Legend- Mickey Smith. Starting in 2006 till the end of 2016 he played 6440 executive and 328 champion nines!! That averages out to over 315 eighteen hole rounds for 11 straight years, plus he works three days a week. Mickey is a golfing machine, one year he played 800 executive rounds and he walks every one of them. During that time period he has had streaks of 48 and 69 straight months were he played every executive course monthly. Having played all the courses over 200 times he knows every tidbit about each hole. I suggested to him he needs to write a book about his knowledge of the Executive courses. In addition to golf he and his wife swim in all the 73 pools at The Villages every year. It was a pleasure to play with this Villages Legend.

12/24/2020 UPDATE

My son and I played Bacall executive on Christmas Eve and to my surprise we are paired up with Mickey. It has been almost 4 years and 76 year old Mickey is still playing everyday, but not three times a day. He peaked out at a record 830 rounds in one year. That has since been surpassed by a lady who played 838 rounds.You put up a number and it becomes a target for everyone else. Currently, there is a rumor that a gentleman has already played over 1100 rounds so far this year. He is really raising the bar for the next challenger!! We will see what the final tally is in another week. My guess is that Mickey is still the most prolific golfer overall in the history of The Villages.

So what has happened in the Villages since our last game? I have now played ALL 693 holes of golf, 54 golf courses, over 3.5 million rounds played in 2020, 2500 holes in one, 214 pickleball courts, and the 100th pool just opened. A huge parcel of land was acquired South of the turnpike, which will connect another 50,000 homes over the next 20 years. Population is now over 130,000 and growing.

For my Rankings of all 54 Village courses please scroll down the blog and you will find two articles where I break down all the courses into a numerical value by Championship and Executive. Not all courses are created equal, so if you want to play the best ones check it out.       I have photographed all 306 Championship holes, click on the Slideshows tab above and scroll down you will be able to view all 12 courses.                                                     Merry Christmas

"A good 9-holer knows what it is- intimate, local, welcoming- and avoids what it isn't: pretentious, punitive, grand." -Mike Button

"Golf is my profession. Show business is just to pay the green fees."- Bob Hope

What is a Links Course?

The British Golf Museum defines a links course as "a stretch of land near the coast characterized by undulating terrain, often associated with dunes, infertile sandy soil, and indigenous grasses such as marram, sea lyme, and the fescues and bents which, when properly managed, produce the fine-textured, tight turf for which links are famed."

The Links Diary states "Links land is characterized by fast running, hard turf, undulations and sand dunes....This is the purest form of golf where the running game is the key to good play. The elements are part of the defense of these seemingly living and breathing courses. The sand under the soil creates the links magic that we all love."

To me the joy and exhilaration of playing a Links course comes from the proximity to the ocean, where the weather is always unpredictable and its firm and fast playing conditions. I love the challenge of a stiff, cool breeze making me focus on all the variables it brings to shotmaking. The worse the weather, the more focused I become, and the more enjoyment I get out of a good shot.

The most severe wind and elements I can recall playing in was 2011 at Narin and Portnoo on the west coast of Ireland. 45 MPH of sustained wind with intermittent showers. The par 5, #14 which is uphill and was playing directly into the wind was the highlight of my day when I parred it. I hit a driving iron three times, a wedge on the green, and dropped the putt. It felt like an eagle!

To see all the pictures of True Links courses I have played around the world, please go to the header on the main page.

'The only thing you should force in a golf swing is the club back in the bag."- Byron Nelson

The thrill of golf is not a function of how far you hit the ball but how well"- Tom Doak

'Golf is a lot like life. When you make a decision, stick with it."- Byron Nelson

"Hazards should not be built solely with the idea of penalizing bad play, but with the object of encouraging thoughtful golf and rewarding the player who possesses the ability to play a variety of strokes with each club"- Wm Langford

"We're not trying to embarrass the best players in the world: we're trying to identify them."- Sandy Tatum @ 1974 US Open

 Future US Open sites:

2021- Torrey Pines South

2022- The Country Club

2023- L.A. CC North

2024- Pinehurst #2

2025- Oakmont

2026- Shinnecock

2027- Pebble Beach

"It is better to walk alone, than with a crowd going in the wrong direction."- Herman Siu

"Sucess depends less on strength of body than upon strength of mind and character"- Arnold Palmer

We don't stop playing the game because we get old; we get old because we stop playing the game.

"The way I have been putting today, I must have been reading the greens in Spanish and putting them in English."- Chi Chi

"It does not matter how slowly you go, so long as you do not stop."-Confucius

This is a great piece of advice for most people but NOT for golfers. If you are not keeping up with the group in front of you and the golfers behind you are on your tail, pick up the pace and play ready golf or let them play through. Keeping the flag in is one of the best rule changes I have seen, in my life, for speeding up play. No need to ever touch the flagstick again.

"Forget your opponents. Always play against par."-Sam Snead

Bagger Vance quotes

- Golf is a game that can't be won, only played

-The rhythm of the game is just like the rhythm of life.

-Don't think about it, feel it...your hands are wiser than your head will ever be.

-Inside each and everyone of us is our one, true authentic swing.

-I hear you lost your swing. I guess we got to find it.

"Three bad shots and one good one still make par."- Walter Hagen

You don't play golf to relax, you relax to play golf.

Roy McAvoy: I tend to think of the Golf Swing as a poem.

Roy McAvoy: The critical opening phrase of this poem will always be the grip, which the hands unite to form a single unit by the simple overlap of the little finger. Lowly and slowly the club head is led back, pulled into position not by the hands, but by the body, which turns away from the target, shifting weight to the right side without shifting balance. Tempo is everything, perfection unobtainable, as the body coils down at the top of the swing. There's a slight hesitation. A little nod to the gods.
Dr. Molly Griswold: A, a nod to the gods?
Roy McAvoy: Yeah, to the gods. That he is fallible. That perfection is unobtainable. And now the weight begins shifting back to the left, pulled by the powers inside the earth. It's alive, this swing! A living sculpture and down through contact, always down, striking the ball crisply, with character. A tuning fork goes off in your heart and your balls. Such a pure feeling is the well-struck golf shot. Now the follow through to finish. Always on line. The reverse C of the Golden Bear! The steelworkers' power and brawn of Carl Sandburg's Arnold Palmer!

Excerpt from Tin Cup, starring Kevin Costner as Roy McAvoy.

Guide to Executive Golf at The Villages

Currently, there are 42 executive style courses totaling 386 holes in The Villages, Fl. All courses have multiple sets of tees and from the back are challenging for most golfers. Conditioning is not consistent so I have only ranked these courses on two factors: How many holes are somewhat interesting/challenging of the 9 and what is the overall difficulty of the course on a scale of 1-4. After adding these factors I have come up with the four tiers below. * Course has two par 4's.*
Tier 1 (10-12pts)-12
Roosevelt 8/4*, Truman 8/4, Pelican 8/4*, Amberwood 7/4, Gray Fox 6/4, Southern Star 7/3, Mira Mesa 7/3*, Yankee Clipper 7/3*, Bonita Pass 7/3, Briarwood 7/3, Volusia 7/3, Okeechobee 6/4.
Tier 2 (9.5-8pts)-14
Longleaf 6/3.5, Bacall 6/3.5*, Bogart 6/3, Walnut Grove 6/3, Silver Lake 6/3*, Red Fox 5.5/3, Sweetgum 6/2, Lowlands 5/3*, Churchill Greens 5/3*, Loblolly 5/3, Heron 5/3, Palmetto 5/3*, Oakleigh 5/3, Turtle Mound 6/2, El Diablo 5/3.
Tier 3 (7.5-6.5pts)-8
Belmont 4/3.5, Hill Top 5/2, Hawkes Bay 5/2, Sandhill 5/2, Tarpon Boil 4/3, Redfish Run 4/3, Escambia 4/3, Mangrove 3/3.5.
Tier 4 (6-3pts)-8
De La Vista 3/2*, Pimlico 3/2*, Chula Vista 3/2, El Santiago 4/1, Sarasota, 3/1, Saddlebrook 2/2, Marshview Pitch and Putt 2/1.

"If that ball was wrapped around with bacon, Lassie wouldn't find it."- David Feherty

Grip it strong...Hit it Long! Grip it weak and watch it Leak!

"I didn't come here to lay up"

Many golfers have made this statement and it is one of my all time favorite golf quotes. In the 1986 Pebble Beach Pro-Am, Fuzzy was facing a howling wind and stepped to the tee on the 223 yd par-3 16th at Cypress Point. Most of his competitors were playing safe with an iron, but he pulled out his driver and went for it and eventually won the event by 5 shots. He told the gallery, "If I lay up I feel like I cheated myself."

I'm into my eighth decade of hitting that little white ball (I now play a yellow ball because it helps me track it better). With the recent Chinese Virus scare, the above quote even takes on a more important meaning for me. At my age, tomorrow is no longer a given. I love the short par-4's and you can bet I will never be laying up on one again, regardless of the risk. If there are sucker pins, they are in my dead aim. If I'm in jail and there is a glimmer of hope of getting out, I will make Phil look like a rookie. You will never see me leave a putt short. Golf for me is not about playing it safe and making pars, it is all about the excitement of going for it and occasionally pulling off that great shot. I can't ever remember a shot I layed up on, but I have a lot of great memories of the ones I went for and pulled off!!

As Molly told Roy in Tin Cup, when he was down to his last ball: Go for it, Roy! Just knock it on!



Happy Birthday Alex!!

"The strategy of the golf course is the soul of the game."- George Thomas

"Some ideas are so stupid that only intellectuals believe them."- George Orwell

Slideshow 404 Error message update.

It was brought to my attention today, by longtime reader Tim Kerrigan, that an error message was appearing on all my golf photo's dated before mid 2016. Hopefully, with my limited tech knowledge I have corrected the problem and they will be visible for your viewing. I was able to see them on my end and have no idea how long the problem existed. Thank you again Tim for the time you spent discovering this problem. Sorry for any inconveniences this may have caused.

"A good golfer has the determination to win and the patience to wait for the breaks."-Gary Player