A Love Letter to a Hole I Had No Business Playing
I have been ridiculously fortunate in my life to play some very nice golf courses.
Michigan. Florida. California. Even Hawaii. Which feels borderline irresponsible given my actual golf ability, but here we are. I am deeply blessed for being such a knucklehead.
One of those courses, and arguably the most beautiful and punishing of them all, is Streamsong in Florida. It is south of Orlando, kind of east of Tampa, and squarely in the middle of absolutely fucking nowhere. The place used to be some kind of mine. Phosphate. Emeralds. Gold. Coal. Who knows. Whatever they pulled out of the ground, they replaced it with a golf course designed by someone who genuinely dislikes average golfers.
Streamsong is stunning. In a masochistic kind of way.
There are deep hazards, that are not normal golf course finds so much as open wounds in the earth. Natural hazards that look like something out of a National Geographic documentary. At one point, there was a fifteen-foot gator just sunning himself like he owned the place. Which, to be fair, he does!
Any ball that went into that hazard was gone forever. Plus a day.
They also make you walk. No carts. Which is adorable. Because none of us are professionals. And they tell you right up front that if your ball goes into the hazard, just leave it there. Not because of pace of play, but because of rattlesnakes and other things that want to murder you.
Again, Florida.
We were playing on a Saturday on the Blue course. There is also a Red course and a Black course, but what the actual difference is, I could not tell you. I assume one is hard, one is harder, and one exists purely to punish hubris.
On the Blue course, there is a par 3 on the front 9.
Two hundred yards.
Over water.
Not a little water. A lot of water. Water that stretches from the tee all the way down the left side of the green, with a hill on the right that seems designed specifically to make sure any miss is punished emotionally as well as financially.
Now, two hundred yards by itself is not unattainable. I can, in theory, hit a golf ball two hundred yards. But two hundred yards over water, with accuracy, while people are watching, is a completely different quest.
I am not counting grooves on my club face. I am not shaping shots. Its a swing and a prayer.
The first attempt disappears into the pond.
The second attempt does the same.
By the third, I am negotiating with myself.
By the fourth, and fith I have burned through a sleeve and a half of golf balls. I think they were Callaways. Or maybe Maxfli. Honestly, I had already spent so much money on the round that my brain had stopped tracking additional losses.
Eventually, I do what every Snowman Golfer must do at some point in life.
I walk across the bridge and drop.
And I will forever remember the shame of that walk. The quiet, personal humiliation of not being able to hit a golf ball two hundred yards when the two guys I was playing with, who were not that much better than me, both managed to clear the pond. Not perfect shots. Not pretty shots. But playable.
Meanwhile, I am over there pretending this was all part of the plan.
That is the thing about courses like Streamsong. They are incredible. They are unforgettable. And they are wildly aspirational for people who have no business aspiring.
As a Snowman Golfer, I accept this.
But I would like to formally request one thing.
No more two-hundred-yard par threes, douchebags.