Streamsong Red

Streamsong sits on 16,000 acres of former phosphate strip mine in central Florida, and Red was the first course Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw routed through what the mining left behind—dunes stacked up to 75 feet from a century of stockpiled sand, lagoons where the pits filled with water, and a topography that looks nothing like the flat farmland around it.

Tom Doak and Coore actually walked the whole 36-hole property together before splitting it into Red and Blue, weaving both routings around the same mounds and lagoons. Red's back nine closes with two of the property's most talked-about greens—the 16th's long carry to a biarritz green, and an 18th green with a false front that started as an accident during shaping and got kept once the crew realized it could be mown tight.

Above the quarry lake

Built from what the mine left behind

The dune walls here aren't landscaping—they're spoil piles from a century of phosphate mining, and Coore & Crenshaw routed greens right up against them instead of softening them. The two most talked-about are late in the round: the 16th's long carry over water to a huge biarritz green, and an 18th green with a false front the crew found by accident during shaping and decided to keep.