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I'll get to the first part first. They're doing an amazing amount of renovation at Colony West (Tamarac) and all of it for the better.
They used to have a no-man's land between the white and blue tees at Colony. The blue tees were a little too long (6400-plus) for 20-plus hackers if they wanted to play with their 10-15-handicap friends. But the white tees were 5600, and that was simply too short. It was uncomfortable for even moderately decent players up there.
Well, Colony has added a new set of tees, so it now goes gold (tips), black (new), green, blue (now farther up, maybe 6100 yards, and fine for 10-25 hackers alike) and 5600 for the the higher-handicap players or guys who just don't hit it like they used to. A great change, and it had an immediate impact on improving the quality of my regular Tuesday game.
They're also upgrading the cart paths, putting scorecard tee yardages at the correct point on every path, and just generally turning the place back into a showplace. I can't do anything about the (often) slow play, particularly on weekends, but the greens are just great (very fast) and the whole experience is 180 degrees from the days when it was so torn up following Wilma. So if you haven't seen it in a while, check it out. (Note: It is the height of the season pricewise, but it's a good value for that money.)
As for Oriole, it is NOT a resort course -- no rough, slower greens, not a major challenge -- just some of the nicest people around in the pro shop, dogfights every weekday at 2:30 p.m. (except Wednesday, when they do a 2-man scramble shortly after noon), and weekend dogfights at 11 a.m. each day. There's always money to be made in a format that's fair to everybody, and fun to be had, and I wouldn't miss it on Saturdays. Just make sure you call ahead if you want to get into the dogfight.
Restaurant serves good food, too.
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