Florida has more golf courses than any other state, but it also has more mediocre courses than any other state. I’d argue that there are just four public access layouts in the Sunshine State worth traveling from elsewhere to play. All of them besides TPC Sawgrass are relatively new - and at one resort that blows the rest of Florida - and much of the country - away.
Golf Digest calls Streamsong “The hottest golf destination to open in America this decade,” and they are not kidding (though they mean the past ten years and not actually this decade). The magazine’s Top 100 America’s Greatest Public Courses is the most influential list in the industry and the 2022 version just came out. It has all three eighteens at the resort in the nation’s Top 35 with Red at 20, Blue at 26 and Black at 34. Just to put that in perspective, this year’s U.S. Open venue, Torrey Pines is 42, Pebble Beach’s vaunted Links at Spanish Bay is 53 and Michigan’s famed Bay Harbor is 63. Bandon Dunes, which dominates every ranking, is the only other resort with three higher ranked courses - not Pebble Beach, Pinehurst or Destination Kohler.
I first visited Streamsong shortly after it opened when they had just the first two courses, a clubhouse with a handful of guest rooms above it, a restaurant, and not much else. I went back earlier this year - boy, have things changed.
I did miss the intimacy and laid back feel it originally had, but there’s a price to pay for progress and no way the resort could have survived financially with accommodations for a half dozen foursomes - especially given where it is. The location is really odd and makes Streamsong the easiest resort to get to in the country that is absolutely in the middle of nowhere. It occupies a former phosphate mining site that is still surrounded mostly by active mining sites - and nothing else. It sits in south-central Florida in the middle of a vast, void, rough triangle formed by Tampa, Orlando and Ft. Meyers. It’s just 57 miles and slightly over an hour from the Tampa airport and 86 miles and an hour and a half from Orlando, meaning you can get there non-stop from just about anywhere in the country. But if you need anything (lunch, beer, sunscreen, chips) make sure you get them shortly after hopping in your rental car because once you get off the highway there’s nothing, and once you get here there is literally no place to go without a hassle (make sure you have gas).
That also means once you arrive you are trapped in terms of food and everything else, but the good news is that there is a surprising variety of dining options, and the food service is excellent across the board. However, Streamsong is not a budget destination.
Here’s the skinny on the golf. All three layouts are modern takes on links architecture removed from the ocean, in the currently hot style of places like Kohler, Sand Valley (another of America’s best golf resorts and favorite of mine, a true hidden gem you should check out and read more about here). All allow walking though it is not a must like at Bandon Dunes or the Straits Course, and while I enjoyed walking in the Florida heat, not everyone does. They also have an extensive (and expensive) caddie (and forecaddie) program, like most of their peers cut from this mold.
The Red is the highest rated mainly because all the golf magazine architecture critics worship designers Ben Crenshaw and Bill Coore, but Black (Gil Hanse) is the most fun, wide open with the biggest greens you will ever play, and Blue, the Tom Doak design (Doak did Pacific Dunes which I think is the best public course in the country) is the all-around best. The Red inexplicably throws in a few watery, stereotypically Floridan holes in the middle of an otherwise linksy, dry, running routing which rather than adding variety adds confusion and breaks the rhythm. But that being said, the bottom line is that these are three excellent, standout golf courses and just about everyone will rank them differently, but any of them is better than the best course at all but a handful of other resorts, anywhere.
There is also a cool (and free) short course, the Roundabout, and a putting course, the Gauntlet, conveniently close to its own bar. All the top golf resorts have added short courses and putting courses and Streamsong is definitely one of the top golf resorts, though what I like is that the Roundabout has some real par-3 holes rather than the 50 to 80-yard pitch and putt (or just putt) holes other places are opting for. In any case, these additions are important because it’s a great way to quickly tune up for the anticipated and pricey main event and likely will make you play better, which in turn ups the enjoyment. Also, many traveling golfers are not familiar with the quirky approaches and greens of this style of architecture, so it’s worth checking it out before you get to the first tee. If like many guests you arrive in the afternoon and want to get some golf in, these are perfect.
Superlative Top 35 golf is the reason to go to Streamsong, for sure, but the biggest surprise off the courses is the quality of the food. At some of these build-it-and-they-will-come resorts (Bandon Dunes), food is a bit of an afterthought, and at others (Sand Valley, Cabot Links) it’s good but limited in scope. Not here. Even the signature halfway houses are taken up a notch, each with a specialty: street tacos, BBQ and lobster rolls (good ones being so far from Maine, and not something you see on many - or maybe any - courses). Oddly, they don’t even bother with a “dining” or “bars and restaurant” tab on the resort website, but while this suggests it’s taken less seriously, that is absolutely not the case. SottoTerra is a very good upscale Italian eatery, especially by golf resort standards, with fresh pasta made daily and signature shareable meatballs. Restaurant Fifty Nine is a standard high-end steakhouse, which I mean as a compliment, ticking off all the boxes that are successful for the genre: 28 day dry aged steaks in a range of standout cuts, classic sides and sauces and some creative surprises, from a smoked then braised 22-ounce beef rib (rare) to grilled Denver lamb ribs. Non-red meat offerings standout as well, from lots of raw bars starters to duck three ways using artisanal family farm birds and rare breed poulet rouge chicken.
Having written a bestselling book on the subject, I am big fan of meticulously sourced ingredients, and this is a theme that occurs across all of Streamsong’s eateries. They could go for run of the mill seafood and poultry, but they don’t. Fin & Feather is the brand-new resort hotel’s lobby restaurant and lounge and carries this through with a regional southern theme and locally sourced emphasis, with pickled Southern shrimp, clams from the Florida Keys, pheasant, and the Sunshine State’s signature fish, grouper.
But I was most impressed with the Bone Valley Tavern, the bar and grill in the Streamsong Black Clubhouse. Just about every golf course has a bar/restaurant like this, and few of them are better than average, let alone standout. This is one of my all-time favorites. They take a twist on standard clubhouse far and elevate it, like a basic burger that uses Certified Angus beef and excellent brioche bun, and then overlays a pervasive seafood theme. How many golf clubhouse bars have you been to that offer tuna poke or authentically done Korean fried chicken wings (excellent!)? The signatures include a world-class shrimp, sausage and potato chowder that’s so good I had it every time I ate here even when it was too much. The lobster BLT is a best-seller, for good reason, but I liked the lobster mac and cheese with cavatappi and chorizo even better. Fish and chips uses local hogfish and a tempura crust, the Italian salt and pepper fritto misto uses local Gulf shrimp, Gulf fish and calamari with added banana peppers, Rhode Island-style. This is just an exceptional sport for lunch or dinner (or breakfast) even if you are not playing Black, and it’s the most reasonably priced eatery here. There is a lengthy craft beer list and an unusual number of wines by the glass.
The variety and quality of food gives Streamsong a big lift considering you can’t really go off property to eat, and is part of a determined effort to make this not just a golf resort but a resort. The rooms in the newer main hotel are oddly designed with a weird not quite half wall turning them into a suite of sorts, but overall the property is quite nice with a great rooftop bar and extensive spa facilities. The best bet for lodging is the “Clubhouse Experience,” which takes the dozen rooms over the original clubhouse, where I stayed on my first visit, and packages them together as an alternative to a villa. It’s a single party takeover and while you don’t need to fill all 12 rooms, you need to book the whole thing, which includes the Albatross room, a common area with pool table, card tables, private bar and multiple flat screens. It’s perfect for corporate entertaining but also great if you put together a bigger group and want to enjoy each other’s company. It is also the only place you can stay and play golf (Blue and Red) without taking a shuttle.
In addition to the full spa and outdoor pool, there are also some unusual activities including on-site bass fishing, which is a ton of fun and in terms of golf resorts, something I’ve only seen elsewhere at the 5-course Big Cedar Lodge in Missouri (home to Payne’s Valley, Tiger Woods’ first public U.S. design, an exceptional layout you can read about here). They also offer sporting clays, found typically at the best golf and sporting resorts like Primland (now an Auberge resort), Reynolds Lake Oconee, Destination Kohler, Nemacolin Woodlands and again, Big Cedar Lodge. They even offer archery, which is pretty unusual.
There is enough diversion for one round a day players to fill in the other half of their day, though a place like this gets a lot of 36-hole customers and it is hard to skip the chance to play golf.
