Significant Irrigation Investment Leads to Extreme Makeover for Mission Resort + Club’s El Campeón Golf Course
Best-selling author, mentor, land steward and philanthropist Heather Ash Amara summed it up perfectly: “Change is inevitable but transformation is by conscious choice.”
Well, transformation through a major investment in irrigation has been a conscious choice by the owners and leadership at Central Florida’s Mission Resort + Club where the biggest beneficiaries will be the golfers who tee it up for years to come.
Mission Resort is home to two wonderfully complementary and picturesque golf courses. The older of the two, the El Campeón (The Champion) layout, is currently undergoing an extreme makeover of its irrigation system.
Built in 1917 by George O’Neil, El Campeón is one of the oldest courses in the South. Its classic design features unusually sharp elevation changes in the typically flat central Florida terrain. It has played host to multiple high school, college, and state professional tournaments.
For Bryan Mulry, who was named Director of Golf at Mission Resort + Club in March 2023, El Campeón’s irrigation renovation will greatly impact the playing experience.
“This irrigation investment just shows that the ownership is making significant improvements to the overall golf experience, and that golf experience is the golf course,” said Mulry. “This demonstrates a passionate commitment to the guest experience and the resort.”
Mission Resort + Club, which is located outside the tucked-away town of Howey-in-the-Hills just a 35-minute drive northwest of Orlando, is owned by MMI Hospitality Group, with their hotel management division MMI Hotel Group as operator, made irrigation a top priority.
Shortly before the December 2022 purchase, the future owners met with Danny Parks, the resort’s Director of Agronomy, to discuss the most pressing needs.
“We toured the golf course, and they asked for my top needs,” Parks said. “And one of those was improved irrigation. After discussing with them and Chuck Moore, the Superintendent at King and Prince, we all decided that irrigation would be the number one item we wanted to renovate on the El Campeón golf course.”
With that green light, plans were made for El Campeón to have HDPE (high-density polyethylene) pipes laid out and a Toro irrigation system—including 1,230 sprinkler heads—installed. A two-wire path to communicate to buried decoders and a new pump station was also included.
“We will have upgraded communications with the pump station where we can log in remotely and determine that it is running correctly,” Parks added. “Same story with the irrigation system – we can log in remotely and watch it run. We’ll now be able to control the water better and introduce irrigation to areas where it has not been in the past.
“We’re going from 950 sprinkler heads to 1,230 heads, and this will give us much better coverage and more updated knowledge of coverage. Instead of the single row of irrigation, we might have had 30 years ago, we will now have anywhere from two to six rows on some of the larger holes, which gives us more coverage – which means better conditions and growing grass. Plus, the increase in sprinklers will allow us to run less water per head because we will have superior coverage.”
The irrigation system upgrade’s benefits will greatly enhance the uniqueness and beauty of a facility that Mulry has already designated a “must-see and must-play” golfing destination.
“It’s a unique place because when you drive here, you don’t feel the hustle and bustle,” Mulry said. “Once you come into Howey-in-the-Hills, you’re in a very different part of Florida. There is just one gas station and all of a sudden, you take a left turn into the resort, and it only has one entrance, which kind of tells you that it is unique. It is very quiet here and secluded like a ‘kept secret’. It’s a very special place. ”
Also, there are not too many places where you can play two different courses on the same property in one day, and they are unique because they have two very different layouts. One course has an undulating landscape with water on many strategic holes, and then another one cuts through the residences and tree lines, which gives it a very different look and character.
The other course on the property is Las Colinas (The Hills), which was created in 1992 by former PGA Tour winner Gary Koch. It lives up to its name, with wide fairways rolling over gentle rises. Both courses at Mission Inn feature undulating greens surrounded by tropical vegetation and incorporate large water hazards on many holes.
Nestled among the rolling hills of Lake County, Mission Resort + Club offers an abundance of attractions for romantic couples, vacationers, hikers, cyclists, racquet sports enthusiasts, eco-tourists, and freshwater anglers. The resort features four restaurants and a spa.
Mission Resort + Club features distinct Spanish Colonial architecture and offers 176 hotel guest rooms, 131 deluxe rooms, 38 club suites, four one-bedroom suites, two two-bedroom suites, and one penthouse suite with three bedrooms.
