Quail Valley Golf Club (Vero Beach, FL)
March 2022 – Quail Valley was the first new course I played in 2022. OK it’s actually the second but I’ll talk about Viera East a bit later on. This is late for me to play my first new courses in a year. No I am not on a mission to play all top 100 courses in a certain matter of time nor do I have a stated mission to play “X” number of courses in my lifetime, However, when I started traveling more at about age 35, I have really tried to play as many different (quality) courses as possible. Hell, there are much worse hobbies to have, right? I won’t put a number or goal on the courses I want to play because I also hope to work a few more years before retiring and there are years like this when my full-time career and responsibilities prevent golf trips and winter hometown weather prevents exploring new local courses.
In March 2022, the big news is Ukraine. My in-laws were born and raised in Ukraine and my wife still has family there. As of my writing this review, Putin is in the midst of a full-on invasion of the country. This is a crying shame! I know Ukraine is dirty, politically speaking. Shit, the Bidens used the country to launder their dirty money for years. However, it is a sovereign nation and all of this could have been avoided. I believe. Putin is definitely a wildcard and maybe he was hellbent to invade Ukraine regardless. However, why did he wait for the weakling Biden to get in office – just as he waited until the cowardly Obama was in office to snatch back Crimea? Putin was telegraphing what he was doing for over a year. We should’ve stopped him immediately but are now where we are for the following reasons:
(1) The Green New Dealers own the Democratic Party and are so fucking short-sighted. Go ahead and build an energy transition plan here from fossil fuels to renewable. I’m all for it. Make sure you include Russia and China in that plan. Don’t hijack our energy independence in the short term. Funny (not really) gas prices at the time of this writing are over $4.50 in the Philly area. Joe did that. If we kept the Keystone pipeline on track, it would be running by now. If Dopey Joe didn’t revive Obama-era restrictive drilling policies, we would have additional fossil fuel production. We could supply ourselves and Europe with the energy needed and turn off Russia’s number one export, crippling their economy. We were energy independent the day Trump left office but gas prices more than doubled before the first tank started rolling into Ukraine. Plus, while that moron halted domestic production, he reversed course on Nord Stream 2 and now Russia can get LNG into Europe and bypass Ukraine, giving Ukraine nothing to leverage to prevent the invasion.
(2) Work back channels ensuring Putin that Ukraine would not be accepted into NATO. Zelensky gave that up immediately. It didn’t need to get here to do that.
(3) Start sanctions BEFORE the invasion! Again, Putin telegraphed what he was doing and Biden/the Dems were more worried about the “INSURRECTION!” Yes the horror: an un-armed old lady, a Viking guy, the guy who looked like Chip Gaines from HGTV that stole Nancy’s podium and their buddies were really ready to unseat the government. Joke.
But I digress.
To the course. In my Trump National Los Angeles review I talk about my favorite underrated courses. Add Quail Valley to the list. What a great surprise this course was. Firstly, the non-golf factors here are great. Great staff. One of the best clubhouses you’ll find. Below is the men’s locker room grill. Holy stuffed elephant head!
Now that’s a MAN’S Grill Room right there. They were working on the short course while we were there – but when open, what a great feature. And conditioning was awesome. The course is out there so there are no homes or anything else that distracts from your enjoyment and Nick Price/Tommy Fazio dug some very large ponds and used the fill to create hills and undulations unlike the typical Florida golf courses.
Since we didn’t have anyone there to tee shame us, we played the whites (6,066 yards 69.1/124). There was a LOT of wind and from what our caddie told us (Sean who was awesome and also up at Baltimore Country Club) it is always windy. The course was fair from those tees but wasn’t a pushover. I played up and down and to my handicap (91).
One is a benign opener but keep it right on your approach or you’ll be dunkin’. Two is a peninsula green, par three. It’s 155 yards but it was into the wind when we played so if that is the prevailing wind, take an extra club or two. Three is the one hole where it was good to have a forecaddie. It’s a par five with a landing area to the right but an easy clear straight ahead. Without the Sean, we would have thought the carry was a different hole.
Four is my favorite hole on the front. It’s a 364-yard par four and the number one handicap. You have to keep it left and clear some schmeggies on the drive. I parred it. Five and six run along the perimeter of the property and seven brings you back toward the center of the property and toward the water. Big hitters would probably be playing from the Golds and could possibly get home in two from there with a bomb off the tee. Careful on your approach as anything long is dunkin’.
Eight is another watery par three – keep it left if you’re going to miss. The front closes with a great dogleg left with water right. Another bogey and a 44 on the front. Ten is another favorite – the entire hole off the tee is an island in the pond so you need to navigate water on all sides. I didn’t and took a 7 (par five). Fourteen is the number 18 handicap/ It’s a short par five that our buddy Don – he of prodigious length – got pin high in two but was across the finger of water between the green and the 15th fairway. He almost chipped in for an eagle from there. We were chasing the sunlight by this time. To finish we rushed through 17 – not an easy hole to play sprint golf on – after a nice drive I hooked my second shot into the water. And by 18, we were beyond even the gloamin’. It was dark. The picture above really does not do justice to how dark it was. Great hole though and just missed my par putt for a bogey.
If you have the means and are in the Vero Beach area, try to get on here. You will not be disappointed. Our pro called us on, which considering how tough outside play has been since COVID, was a nice treat.
We did this as part of a Space Coast FL trip. Vero is really below the Space Coast but not a bad drive if you’re staying in Melbourne. Yeah about that, don’t stay in Melbourne. It’s kind of shitty. Overall, not sure I’d recommend it as a golf trip destination. While I loved Quail Valley, the public options were somewhat limited. You could venture down to PGA Village but book early – member play squeezed us out. Viera East is up in Melbourne and was ok but certainly not a course I would build a trip around. There is a little downtown area and Ember & Oak was a pretty good restaurant there. Backwater has griddle tables where you can make your own pancakes and has great bloodies for breakfast, but go early and expect to wait. If you want waterside cocktails, we heard Ichabod’s was good but go to the right one. The one out on the island is a hole. Jim Morrison’s birth home is right down the street from Ember & Oak and Backwater, if that’s your pleasure. Overall, I’d go further north or south if I were planning a Florida winter golf trip – but get yourself on Quail Valley.
Golf Scrapbook 