Streamsong Blue
The Tampa Bay area in Florida is rich in attractions and the homebase to fly into for a great golf trip. Golfers can tee it up here just about any day of the year, with the weather very temperate and the courses among the best in the Sunshine State.
The region is one of the home bases for the Travel Caddie and we love playing golf in our own backyard when we are not out scouting locations for your next great trip.
Here’s a quartet of wonderful options all less than an hour’s drive from Tampa International Airport. There’s rarely a bad day on the golf course (if you’re a golfer, you know) and these facilities all but assure that you will make the most out of a visit to the Tampa area.
Streamsong’s three courses continually spark debate
The Streamsong Resort is undoubtedly one of the most spectacular golf properties in Florida. Comprised of three full-sized 18-hole courses – the Red, the Blue and the Black – the soon-to-be opened Chain short course (and its Bucket putting course) and a lavish Mid-Century Modern-style 216-room hotel.
Located 55 miles southeast of the Tampa airport on the site of a former phosphate mine, Streamsong’s topography is unique in the state because of Its rolling sand dunes and elevation changes. Amongst the three courses, there are hills, dramatic landforms, sweeping sand dunes, ridges and vistas.
All three of the courses are ranked in the top 60 in the nation by Golfweek and it’s basically pointless to debate which one is the best – they are all wonderful, challenging and memorable. When golfers crest one of the dunes on any of the three, they expect to see the ocean and then realize that facility is actually 55 miles inland.
Red and Blue were designed simultaneously by the renowned Bill Coore-Ben Crenshaw team and Tom Doak, respectively, and opened in 2012. Black was fashioned by Gil Hanse and Jim Wagner and debuted in 2017.
The Chain, a 3,000-yard course that contains 19 holes ranging from 90 to over 275 yards, was designed by Coore-Crenshaw and will open Jan. 1, 2024.
Streamsong is one of the top destinations in Florida and the South and has to be on every golfer’s bucket list. The resort experience itself is one of top-shelf luxury with outstanding accommodations, fine dining, and amenities. And while each of the courses on their own would make Streamsong worth the trip, having three (and eventually four) makes the place even more special.
Streamsong Red
Saddlebrook Resort is two times the fun
Set about 40 minutes northeast of the airport in Wesley Chapel, Saddlebrook Resort brings out the best of Florida golf – mostly flat, Cypress tree and swamp-lined holes in a pristine setting amid the award-winning, 480-acre property.
There are two courses here: the Palmer and Saddlebrook – both designed by Arnold Palmer and Ed Seay. Both are fun to play, with the Palmer signature course playing at 6,641 yards and is a par-71 and the resort’s namesake track (which Palmer renovated from an earlier design) weighing in at 6,480 yards and is a par-70.
The Palmer Course is built on higher ground and from its elevated tees, you see mostly wide-open spaces. It reflects the King’s playful side, with wide open fairways, friendly greens complexes with fluffy sand bunkering and lightning-fast putting surfaces.
Palmer’s competitiveness comes out on the Saddlebrook course, which is a little tighter, but not so much that it should be constricting or intimidating.
There are trees on every hole here and water on most providing the habitat for plenty of gators and strutting sandhill cranes throughout both courses. Greens are sloped fairly with no tricked-up pin placements. This is fun Florida golf.
Saddlebrook Resort was purposely planned as a car-free walking village and the resort setting allows guests to easily walk everywhere, surrounded by lagoons and cypress trees. Get there and get comfortable in one the area’s top resort experiences.
Saddlebrook Resort
Innisbrook featured relaxed vibe, wonderful golf on four courses
Nestled deep into 900 wooded acres of rolling hills in Palm Harbor about 40 minutes northwest of the airport, the Innisbrook Resort not only has all the amenities a visitor could ask for but it is served up with mellow and relaxing hospitality. While many resorts overwhelm visitors with all the “service” being given to them, Innisbrook delivers all you need without overwhelming.
The sprawling property features 72 holes of championship golf, as well as 550 spacious guest suites and rooms, four restaurants and three bars, the Innisbrook Golf Academy, 11 tennis courts, the luxurious Salamander Spa with 12 treatment rooms and state-of-the-art Fitness Center, six heated swimming pool complexes, a nature preserve and three conference halls with 100,000 square feet of indoor and outdoor meeting space.
Whew…time to take a breath after that paragraph. Well, you certainly can do that here
The golf is outstanding, led by the Copperhead course, home of the PGA Tour’s Valspar Championship. Innisbrook also features the Island, North and South courses; all four of the courses were designed by the late Larry Packard, a Chicago native who fell in love with the area enough to spend the last 40 years of his life there.
Much like Donald Ross did with Pinehurst No. 2, Packard refined the Copperhead over the years to make it his masterpiece. Copperhead is a course where every shot requires thought and will require every club and shot in the golfer’ bag.
The Island Course features six holes bordered by Lake Innisbrook and lateral water hazards that require pinpoint accuracy on tee shots and approaches. Similar in terrain to the Copperhead Course, the North Course is known for its daunting par-3s, well-bunkered greens and recent course enhancements, including additional yardage to selected par-4s and -5s.
The par-71 South Course is reminiscent of a links-style design and has become a favorite for its rolling hills and breezes sweeping in from the Gulf of Mexico, just minutes away.
Spend four days at Innisbrook and you will get a chance to see Tampa area golf at its best.
Getting the professional feel at TPC Tampa Bay
For years, TPC Tampa Bay has been regarded as one of the best public access facilities in the Tampa area. Whenever the letters TPC precede anything to do with golf, expectations are automatically raised, and this is a facility that delivers on that promise.
Originally opened in 1991, TPC Tampa Bay was designed by renowned golf course architect Bobby Weed with a lot of input from PGA TOUR professional Chi Chi Rodriguez and has consistently received a 4.5-star rating from Golf Digest. Florida Golf Magazine hails it as one of the top five courses in the state.
For more than twenty years, The Champions Tour held an event here. Some of the greatest players of all time have won at this historic property, including Nicklaus, Watson, Price, Langer, and Irwin.
TPC Tampa Bay, which offers enticing stay-and-play opportunities with a bevy of local hotels, underwent an extensive renovation and reopened In September 2022 to rave reviews.
For the most part, the outstanding design that Weed and Rodriguez created was left intact. The greens were re-grassed with Champion G-12 hybrid Ultradwarf Bermuda, the tees and fairways now sport Bimini Bermuda and enhancements were made to the practice facility. Extensive work was done to improve the drainage throughout the course.
The course at TPC Tampa Bay is set among natural wetlands with strands of Cypress trees and several manmade and natural lagoons. The majority of holes have generous fairways that leave manageable shots into the green. Most of the putting surfaces are raised, placing a premium on accurate approach shots.
Stray and you can easily find yourself in one of the many grass swales or in the mounding that surrounds the greens, which have a lot of undulation, multiple tiers and are usually protected by bleach-white bunkers. The difficulties around the green will give you a new appreciation for a PGA TOUR player’s short game.
TPC Tampa Bay is owned by Heritage Golf Group, the fastest-growing golf club ownership company in the country. The group’s attention to detail at its clubs is second to none and the golfer reaps the benefits of those standards.
TPC Tampa Bay