Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw had two aces up their sleeves when they accepted the job of building a new short course at Streamsong Resort in Florida: They had sandy terrain on which to work, and they were hired by a management team looking for something different. Perhaps very different.
The quick-draining, sandy site for The Chain – the name references the giant drag chains used during the land’s previous life as part of a phosphate mining company – provides the firm and bouncy conditions so many golfers love. And sand is relatively easy to push around to form interesting contours.
“The blessing is sand,” said Crenshaw, the two-time Masters champ who partnered with Coore nearly 40 years ago to build some of the top modern courses around the world. “You’re way, way ahead of the game when you have sand.”
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And because they were tasked with designing a short course, they were free to let their imaginations wonder. They needn’t be concerned with protecting par or making sure resort golfers could get around a traditional, full-size layout without losing too many balls. The KemperSports managers of Streamsong, who have since bought the resort from Mosiac Company, gave the architects carte blanche to design holes as they saw fit, so long as the focus was on golfers enjoying something new and fresh.
The fun begins Dec. 1 when the resort allows limited preview play of The Chain, and it will only get better when the 19-hole, 3,000-yard layout opens fully in early 2024. Consider it mostly a par-3 course with holes ranging from 109 to 293 yards on the scorecard but with no formal tee markers, allowing guests to play each hole from a range of shorter distances of their own choosing.
Architects Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw have built several of the best short courses around the world. (Courtesy of Streamsong)
The layout features two loops – one six holes, the other 13 – that can be played individually or as one course. And those 19 holes encircle The Bucket, a 2.5-acre putting green that’s more than 100 yards from one end to another – it easily can hold two putting courses, perhaps three. The site will feature a food truck offering creative and quick fare with plenty of cool drinks, enhancing what likely will be considered by many to be the best spot on property to hang out as the sun dips.
It’s a non-traditional setup, very different than the three highly ranked 18-hole courses at the resort: the Red, the Blue and the Black. Coore and Crenshaw built the Red more than a decade ago, with Tom Doak having designed the Blue and Gil Hanse later adding the Black. That non-traditional theme for The Chain was, in many ways, liberating.
“We’ve heard from people for years, ‘You can’t do that. That won’t be accepted. That’s too radical. That’s too on the edge,’” Coore, who recently took a site visit to The Chain to see how the grass was growing in, said of designing traditional-length courses. “With a par-3 course, you can kind of dispense with that a little bit. If you’re in our profession, it does give you freedom to work.”
On The Chain, that meant greens sized to fit the shorter holes, often with more demanding slopes and runoffs than might be found on a full-sized, traditional layout. The Chain’s greens offer a variety of steep false fronts, backstops and tiers not typically found on a Coore and Crenshaw course. There’s a bunker sunk into the middle of No. 6 on The Chain, and the 189-yard 11th hole features a carry over a lake to a semi-blind punchbowl green – play it short and bounce it on from the left, or take the tee shot deep of the flag and let the hill behind the green roll the ball back onto the putting surface.
“There’s some really, really interesting holes out there, but probably most people will point to (No. 11) because you do play over a beautiful lake,” Coore said. “It used to be a flat piece of ground out there, and we just mined a bunch of sand out of it and made a big hole. It’s just one of those holes, if it wasn’t for the blessing and support of the ownership group, it wouldn’t be there because it could be, for a lot of people, too radical. …
“My perception is, absolutely, we can do different things with a shorter course. With shorter shots, you can be a bit more aggressive with the greens. Some off the things, they’re more in a reduced scale, but you can take more liberties and a few more risks to do greens and surrounds with a few interesting things that you might not be able to do with a regulation course, where you’re trying to adapt to people of such varying degrees of strength and skill. We love it.”
Coore and Crenshaw have built short courses around the world, with Bandon Preserve at Bandon Dunes Golf Resort in Oregon their most famous. At each of them, Coore said, they have tried to introduce shots that grow in interest after the ball lands and starts rolling. The design team tried for years to convince more clubs and resorts to add short courses as fun alternatives for members and guests, efforts that in recent years have paid off with a new breed of non-traditional golf.
“We’ve been given the opportunities to work with some really interesting sites for short courses, be it the Preserve at Bandon or the Sandbox at Sand Valley or Bougle Run at Barnbougle in Australia. It’s just neat. We do feel like you can give it some personality and distinct character. You’re going to see that here.
“When you play a shot, get it on the ground, watch it trundle around, you’ll go, oh my gosh, look over there, it’s on the green! The Preserve is pretty darn good. The Sandbox is pretty darn good. Bougle Run is pretty darn good. And I personally think this one has the potential to be in that category.”