Pros:
I'm impressed. Commons takes the characteristics of South Florida courses and fuses them with incredible design and beautiful terrain. Anything that any other area course does, it is done better here. The park is bigger, more scenic and cleaner than anything else. Like pretty much every other course, Commons is situated around a lake. But it uses the lake better. Though most parks here are open, allowing players to air it out, the open spaces here are bigger and bolder. The tees are perfection, big and flat enough to launch full drives. And though the park is multi-use, at no point did I feel like I was throwing down a pathway. Tees are placed with the back toward a path if one was close. Just a great experience that is only getting better as it approaches completion.
Before I proceed, I'd like to mention the one atypical hole. Imagine a perfectly shaped RHFH line on a wooded course with well-defined fairways. Now replace the woods with two lines of ten-foot palms. No underbrush. On a peninsula. My favorite hole, and one that tempts you to picture an entire course designed and built by planting palms. (I can also imagine the incredible expense of building that though.)
The first few holes are decent enough. They use a little elevation and few large trees to offer a little variety to an area that is mostly open. It is from 5 on that the course shines. That is when the lake comes into play. Most of the holes offer real risk/reward, with a direct line at the basket over water and safer route over land that will add at least a stroke to the score. These are some lengthy carries too. 6 is a highlight, in which the basket is behind a clump of trees. The land route isn't further than the sea rout here, but the land route will require a forehand shot to attack the basket where a RHBH player will be forced to hyzer over the water to get around the trees with his preferred style. And for those that can't make the full carry, most of the holes do offer a bailout to the left of the lake. And yet, it doesn't have that every-hole-is-the-same feeling that plagues many courses that circle a large lake.
Commons isn't really doing anything that hasn't been done before in South Florida. It's just doing it all better.
Cons:
Most of the issues will likely be cleared up within a few months. Tee signs and a map will make a big difference here for first time players as many of the baskets are far enough from the tee to really give no clue to the player. There is currently not even a distance listed so one doesn't know how far to look or throw. But I'm sure those are on the way and this comment will soon be invalidated.
In the same way, some of the navigation is tricky. The tees are so large that they can be spotted from some distance but there are times where it is just too far to easily spot. This is especially true towards the end of the course as once the road is crossed to play the last three holes, the flow is not intuitive. Again, a map and tee signs clear this up. Hazard of playing a new course.
I do think this course has 4.0 potential but it doesn't have the shot-shaping I would want to see from a truly elite course. It could very well be among the best of its type (open rolling hills with water in play) but that only goes so far. After playing fourteen courses in South Florida in the past week, I've realized that for me, a course without much narrower fairways than the terrain allows for here could ever be higher than a four. And like any course that uses water as the main source of challenge, the holes away from the lake tend to be less interesting. 10-12 mitigate that somewhat with excellent basket positions but the opening and closing holes here are certainly the least memorable.
Other Thoughts:
Still, Commons is already the best course in South Florida and it is still improving.