Day one of my week long trip to Florida. Unfortunately the trip to Innnisbrook had to be canceled, but it's not that much of a sacrifice having to come to beautiful Streamsong instead for the next thr... Continue »

Day one of my week long trip to Florida. Unfortunately the trip to Innnisbrook had to be canceled, but it's not that much of a sacrifice having to come to beautiful Streamsong instead for the next three days. Today I had the pleasure of playing Streamsong Blue with three work colleagues and two fine caddies. What can you say about this place? It's pretty remarkable. Built by master golf course architect Tom Doak, the Blue course is a stunning and incredibly challenging (yet very fair) track that rises and dips with the 'natural' topography that was created atop the sand dunes here after a hundred years of phosphate mining. The scenery is pretty incredible, and the wildlife is abundant, including a fairly close encounter with a very large gator. No thanks. Conditions near perfect in every sense. The greens, running about 11.5, were glassy goodness the way greens were meant to play. The breaks and undulations are formidable though and there was no shortage of three-putts in our group. It's very much a 'leave it short and let it run' type of situation. But again, it's very fair and there are ample opportunities to shoot good scores here, but it is tough if your shots aren't near the target. The fairways are in fine shape with no bad lies all day. This place gets abundant sunshine and rain, so the grass replenishes itself pretty quickly and easily. The rough varies throughout the course but there are many areas where it's tough to tell the difference from rough to fairway, and even the greens as it's very much a links-style setup (think Rustic Canyon-esque green complexes, only more complex). Sand is everywhere on this course, which is great and awful (when you're hitting wayward shots). But none of the bunkers are intrusive per se. They're well placed and work more as guidelines than obstacles, but of course when you do hit into them, the sand is pretty much perfect. It's very soft though so you can anticipate quite a few 'fried eggs' if your approach shots are high enough. Tee boxes were great (we played from the black tees). And of course the layout is pretty stunning. No two holes are alike and there are some real lookers in there, including the gorgeous par 3 7th hole over water and the intimidating yet beautiful par 3 17th. In between those holes those you can't possibly feel anything but sheer exhilaration at being here. The resort itself is first class all the way, and the setup from the clubhouse to the 19th hole is all top notch. There is absolutely nothing for miles around this place, so it is the true definition of 'destination golf.' And what a destination it is. Fantastic. Inspiring. Awesome. Tomorrow we play the Red course so I'm looking forward to that immensely. And by the way, the third course here (the Black Course designed by Gil Hanse) is now ready to go, but the caddies told us it won't be opening to the public until next October as they want to let it mature first. These guys leave nothing to chance. And it shows.