Lake Nona Golf & Country Club

Most golfers will never get to tread the fairways here but many will feel that they know Lake Nona through television coverage of the Tavistock Cup team event, where top professionals attached to the Isleworth Golf & Country Club compete in a two-day match against their counterparts at Lake Nona Golf & Country Club.

Both Sunshine State clubs lie within 25 miles of each other and, since 2004, their annual friendly matches for the title of "World Golf and Country Club Champion" have raised millions of dollars for local and international charities.

Isleworth and Lake Nona are regarded as two of the finest gated golf community developments in the whole country and Lake Nona’s Tom Fazio-designed course enjoys a sumptious lake side setting within a secluded 600-acre estate.

Playing to 7,215 yards from the back markers, Lake Nona starts off under a canopy of tall trees on the front nine, becoming more open on the inward half as the final five holes play around natural inland lakes.

The signature 15th hole hugs the shoreline of Buck Lake as it swings slightly left from the tee with a long fairway bunker separating the fairway from a large body of water on the left. Anything better than a regulation par five here is some achievement!

In 2011, two other clubs, that also enjoy an unrivalled depth of professional talent, joined the Tavistock Cup party. The ultra-exclusive Albany (a private residential resort on the Bahamian New Providence Island, established by the Tavistock Cup Group, Ernie Els and Tiger Woods) was joined by England’s poshest golf club, Queenwood. These two new entrants, along with the original duo, Isleworth and Lake Nona, playfully schmooze for the Tavistock Cup each year.