At Streamsong, a more traditional approach to the game of golf

Robert Silk

Arriving on a sunny afternoon last month at the Streamsong Resort golf complex, about 30 miles south of Lakeland, I wouldn't have believed what I was seeing if I hadn't prepared myself.

Seemingly out of nowhere, massive, jagged sand dunes towered above the surrounding undeveloped Central Florida countryside. Beneath them, the fairways of Streamsong's two courses meandered up and down rolling hills. Unusual as those sights are in the mostly flat Sunshine State, it was what I saw on those fairways that looked most out of place for a Florida golf resort. Golfers, lots of them, walked the courses, their bags shouldered either by caddies or by themselves. If I hadn't known better, I might have thought I was on the Oregon coast, or in golf's homeland, Scotland.

With its more than 1,000 courses and its year-round sun, the Sunshine State is a worldwide golfing destination. In fact, Florida has more golf courses than any other U.S. state, according to the National Golf Foundation. And spurred by the international notoriety that comes from hosting more PGA Tour events than anywhere else, the state has world famous golf resorts such as TPC Sawgrass in Ponte Vedra Beach, Trump National Doral in Miami and PGA National in Palm Beach Gardens.

But despite achieving such widespread success, Florida golf has its share of naysayers, and not just among those who are averse to the sport. Many avid golfers also dismiss Sunshine State golf, where the large majority of courses are carved through flat terrain and then fortified with man-made lakes. Purists also often decry Florida's resort golf culture, which has turned askance at the game's tradition as a walking endeavor and has instead aggressively promoted the use of golf carts as a luxury amenity. Indeed, most resort and upscale courses throughout the state heavily restrict walking or bar it outright.

Standing apart from that landscape is Streamsong, the 36-hole golf complex and full-service resort that opened to great acclaim in late 2012. This year the Streamsong Red and Blue courses were ranked first and third, respectively, on Golf Digest's prestigious ranking of Florida public courses. Only the Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass, home to one of golf's biggest tournaments as well as the famous island-green 17^th hole, prevented Streamsong from achieving total dominance in the Golf Digest ranking.

Streamsong's towering dunes aren't exactly natural. But neither were they sculpted by a golf architect. Rather, they are the result of phosphate mining undertaken by Streamsong owner Mosaic. The company worked the site from the 1960s to the 1990s, leaving behind dunes that rise 90 feet high. When the machines left, native grasses came back. Meanwhile, the mining trenches gathered water, and over time, became lakes. 

Within such a landscape, it was a no-brainer that any golf course built would be designed in the tradition of classic dunesland golfing locales, such as the seaside links courses of Scotland and Ireland and the acclaimed Bandon Dunes complex in coastal Oregon.

“To not have done what we have done would have been really disappointing,” Tom Sunnarborg, Mosaic's vice president of land development and management, said in a recent interview.

But in other respects, Mosaic could have chosen to mimic the typical Florida golf experience at Streamsong. Instead, the company took the opposite tact. It hired traditionalist golf course architects Tom Doak, Ben Crenshaw and Bill Coore, who are known for altering as little of the landscape as possible. The courses they built don't have cart paths, ornamental landscaping or even ball washers. In the tradition of the world's oldest courses, neither the Red nor Blue course returns to the clubhouse after nine holes. Meanwhile, Streamsong runs a robust caddie program and promotes “walking golf” on its website. In fact, the use of golf carts is banned on both courses between Jan. 1 and April 15.

Streamsong Lodge Photo Credit: Robert Silk

Sunnarborg says that Streamsong's remote, inland location, an hour from Tampa and 90 minutes from Orlando, dictated the strategy.

“We needed to differentiate ourselves from every golf course in Florida,” he said.

By all appearances, the approach is working. Golfers already travel to Streamsong from throughout the U.S. and around the world. This winter, the two courses combined for an average of more than 300 rounds per day, according to Sunnarborg. Meanwhile, in January the resort began construction of a third course; a fourth course is also in the early planning stages.

Spurred by the 216-room Streamsong Lodge, which opened last year, the resort has also begun to draw a crowd that is more diverse than merely golfers. The lodge has nearly 25,000 square feet of meetings space. Its grotto-themed AcquaPietra Spa has nine treatment rooms. And the three restaurants at the lodge include SottoTerra, offering upscale Italian cuisine, and Fragmentary Blue, a rooftop lounge with  vast views of the adjacent Little Payne Creek and the surrounding landscape.

So, now that Streamsong has proven that a Florida golf resort can excel by offering a more traditional, and even rugged, experience than what is typically available in the state, will that lesson have a broader impact on Florida's destination golf culture.

Sunnarborg, for one, is dubious.

“I hope so,” he said. “But I think what we have done at Streamsong is a result of specific decisions we made because of our site location.”

Still, here's to hoping that other Florida resorts will see that by offering caddies, or even just by giving players the option of walking the course, they can appeal to the segment of the golf market that has largely turned its back on golf in the Sunshine State.