For all the attention on distance in the modern game, a design trend has targeted those of us who don’t launch it 300 yards.
The short course.
Streamsong Resort, which established itself in the past decade as a must-play destination featuring three of the best public-access courses in America, has given golfers another reason to find this remote setting in central Florida: The Chain.
Architects Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw, who helped open Streamsong to great acclaim in 2012 with the Red course, one of three rolling, walkable links-style layouts on this moonscape of a reclaimed phosphate mining site, added to their list of worldwide design hits with the 19-hole Chain.
“The demand for the short course is a great thing for golf,” said Kevin Kennedy, Streamsong’s general manager. “It brings a lot more people into playing golf. Playing on championship-level courses for new people is very difficult. We built it because during our season, which is the winter months, November through April, it’s shorter days, and a lot of people want to play more than 18 holes, but they can’t. In building this course, it definitely satisfies people’s appetite for more golf.”
The Chain is no pitch-and-putt pushover. A short walk out the front door of Streamsong’s modernistic glass-and-steel S-shaped lodge, the course unfolds with a breezy six-hole opening loop of short-iron shots and birdie chances amid stands of moss-draped oaks. Any sense of complacency quickly vanishes for the second loop, a 13-hole series that ratchets up the shot-making demands.
Coore-Crenshaw’s creative genius at The Chain, a course built for the camaraderie and gamesmanship of match play, lies in the teeing areas. They’re mere suggestions for where to peg it. Want to test your opponent’s ability to finesse a gap wedge after he or she chunked the past two attempts? If you’ve got the honor, make your rival play from an uncomfortable distance. The teeing grounds, marked by industrial-size chain links (get it?) used to hold a dragline bucket from resort founder Mosaic Company’s shuttered mining operation, flex 50 yards or more on most holes. Some tee shots can be as short as 50 yards; others stretch to nearly 300. The scorecard lengths range from 1,576 from the front to 2,916 from the back. A few forced carries add to the challenge. You could use just about every club in the bag, from wedge to driver, if choosing the longer teeing options.
How’s that for variety?
And to boost the fun meter, just about anything goes.
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