Streamsong Blue Course Review: Florida Golf with a distinct difference

Streamsong Blue Course Fact File

• Location: 90 minutes from Orlando and Tampa
• Year Established: 2012
• Par: 72
• Length (yards): 7,276
• Green Fees (weekdays): $370
• Signature Hole: The par-3 7th, given its spectacular setting alongside 16 on the Red
• Website: streamsongresort.com

One of the most fascinating aspects of both Streamsong's Red and Blue courses is how they came about. Bill Coore and Tom Doak were both keen on the land that they were shown but the only problem was that they might not be able to fit in 36 holes on a unique piece of land for two golf courses in Florida.

"Bill and I both have similar tastes and we both had our eye on the one particular site, and as much as we like each other and either one of us really wanted to take a bullet for the other guy and say, okay, I'll do the other site. Rich Mack (the visionary behind Streamson) asked me specifically, so, if I gave you one of the other sites, do you think you could build as good a course as on this site?" explained Doak on the Fried Egg podcast.

"I said, well, I'm pretty good, but if I took any of those other sites and made it as good as this site here, then you must have hired the wrong guy for this site here, because this should turn out way better than the other ones."

The pair got their heads together and managed to fit in 31 holes and Coore would find five holes from a nearby site. And, while their names sit next to the Red and the Blue, the reality is that both designers had a fairly big hand in the other course and both took plenty of inspiration from one another.

Streamsong Blue Course Review

The easy summing up of the Blue is that it is a more wide open course, the fairways are generous and you will do well to lose a ball here. But the Blue is a tougher second shot course than the Red and the contours around the greens are something else.

Doak likes to design a lot with the opportunity to get up and down by keeping the ball low. The idea, from a tight lie, that you will flop one up there won't hold any currency here and there will be a lot of bogeys on your card. Instead the test is to have the turf firm and fast, use the contours and save your par that way. One of the first things that Doak also points out is that there will be a lot of bounces, helpful and otherwise, and the smart thinking is not to get too flustered by them.

Another of the interesting aspects of the Blue are the elevation changes. Right from the opening tee shot, where there is quite a climb after which you are rewarded by an incredible view of the 1st fairway, it's not the flat property that you would expect from an old mine.

The short 7th is the most photographed hole on the Blue and it was here that Doak first landed in a helicopter in 2009.

"My first impression was that it looked like the sand hills of Nebraska. We landed and that big dune behind the 6th green is immediately right in your face, a 50-foot-high sand dune sitting out here with native grasses on it like it'd always been there. So we drove up onto that, and then, you know, right when we got up there to where my 7th tee is, now all of a sudden there's a reveal that on the backside of the sand dune the ground drops off 80 feet into a 30-acre lake with a 100-foot sand dune on the far side of it. And I was like, holy crap.

"I've never seen anything like that in my life. And I said to the client if you'd have blindfolded me and kidnapped me and brought me down here and taken the blindfold off, you know, Florida would be like the 47th guess of what state are we in."

While the Blue is wider off the tee and you might not be reloading too often, the closing four holes do present a stiff test with the thinking being that it's OK to be tough in places. The eye-catching part of this is the 17th which measures a whopping 690 yards off the back tees though it will generally be played with a bit of help from the wind.

"It's in the middle of Florida, and it's nothing at all like anything else. Florida has way too many average golf courses, but this was not an average site for a golf course, and it was pretty obvious that you could do something special with it."

Final verdict

The modern way of thinking is to throw in something different and very fun and here we have The Chain short course. Here we have 19 holes, the longest being 293 yards, and a split of six on the front side and 13 on the back. The first half dozen are played in a loop around a set of Oaks before a slight change of pace, the odd carry and all of it sits in a 36-acre site that features elevation, water features and sand scrapes.

Each hole has teeing areas, there are no markers, and dragline chains in the ground to mark the area out. The winner of the previous hole chooses where to play from, par doesn't get a mention and you carry your bag and handful of clubs.

"There are all sorts of holes that are very unusual of shorter length, and the really good players will really enjoy it and say this is not like a pitch and putt, there's some real golf there," explains Crenshaw.

Then there is also The Bucket, a two and a half acre putting course to fill more of your time. You're going to hear plenty more about Streamsong in the coming years. They will be hosting the 2027 PGA Professional Championship and there will be a new David McLay Kidd layout in the coming years – the clever money is on this being called Streamsong White to add yet another outstanding layout to the list.