Sprawling across 120 acres along the shore of St. Andrew Bay, the Pelican Point Golf Course offers Florida playing at its scenic best.
This portion of Tyndall has been a center of activity for almost 2500 years. Archaeological digs found pottery shards pointing to the presence of Native Americans long before any European exploration. In the 1800s, a Spanish trader jumped ship and settled on Red Fish Point, now the back nine holes of Pelican Point. Descendants were still living on the land when it became a military instillation in the early 1940s. You can see the family graveyard on that part of the course during a break in your game.
This course keeps with the military's propensity for building courses as 9 hole layouts and then later, when additional MWR (morale, welfare and recreation funds) became available, adding the back 9.
The front nine was laid out in 1967. The back nine was added several years later. The course location location (right on the Gulf of Mexico) is wonderful.
Because Tyndall AFB is actually located on a peninsula that juts out from the main part of Florida's panhandle, the surrounding terrain is quite flat. There is not a great deal of vertical elevation or terrain variation on the course. The course plays flat and has a mixture of hazards that can wreak havoc with your score. The course makes excellent use of beach sand for very large areas of bunkerage. The course also made maximum utilization of swampy terrain to catch errant shots. II you play Pelican Point Golf Course and hit into the water, watch out for snakes and alligators. Better yet, take out a new ball, take the stroke penalty and play from where the ball left in-bounds play.
Unlike many military courses, Pelican Point has very large greens. One of the things that will capture yourattention is the sheer beauty of the layout. As you approached each and every tee box and looked down the respective fairway to be played, you were treated to a visually stunning landscape.
Much of the Pelican Point golf course layout, runs along the Gulf. The rest of the course meanders and the golfer will experience links-like seaside tailored holes as well as holes with narrow fairways, completely surrounded by vegetation. The sand in the bunkers can vary from very fine to somewhat coarse.
Pelican Point Golf Course plays to 7,051 yards from the tips. The course rating is 73.6 with a slope rating of 128.
Blue tees: par-72, 7,051 yards, 73.6/128
White tees: par-72, 6,635 yards, 71.7/125
Gold tees: par-72, 5,588 yards, 68.8/116
Red tees: par-72, 5,312 yards, 70.2/119
Latest Golf Course Reviews
$31 (cart included), played on Tuesday, March 2010 at 10am
Shame for such a historically beautiful facility to have been neglected so pitifully.