Florida has long been a ‘go-to’ destination for US and international golfers. The combination of year-round good weather and over 1,200 courses across the state – the majority of which are public access – is a compelling one. However, if there’s a negative to golf in Florida it’s the fact that the majority of layouts look and play the same.
Courses tend to be either wide open and lacking in visual stimulation, or heavily tree lined and a little claustrophobic. Fairways are usually over-watered with little or no run on offer. Amorphous, highly manicured bunkers line fairways and surround greens and present little in the way of a strategic challenge to escape them. Expansive water hazards (sometimes on both sides of the fairways and greens) intimidate and penalize golfers. Greens are vast but often have little in the way of interesting movement. Target golf at its ‘finest’.
Oh, and nine times out of 10 you have no option but to ride in a cart if you want to play them.
There are, of course, exceptions to the rule. Perhaps most notably Streamsong Resort in deepest central Florida about an hour south east of Tampa, where the three 18-hole courses, Blue, Red, Black and a short course called The Chain offer a sensational golfing experience that makes the most of a dramatic landscape that’s part natural, part man made.
You can now add Cabot Citrus Farms to the list of Florida destinations that offer something refreshingly different.
An aerial view of the Karoo course at Cabot Citrus Farms
(Image credit: Matt Majka)
Like Streamsong, Cabot Citrus Farms is off the beaten track. Located in an area known as the Nature Coast, it’s a 90-minute drive from Orlando and 60 minutes from Tampa. The nearest town is Brooksville (population approximately 10,000) and the local economy is founded on agriculture… hence the Citrus Farms name.
Strictly speaking, Cabot Citrus Farms isn’t ‘new’ as it occupies the site that was home to World Woods, which opened in 1994 at the height of the golf course boom that saw hundreds of new layouts spring up across America.
The green at the par-3 10th on the Karoo Course at Cabot Citrus Farms
(Image credit: Matt Majka)
The vision was for it to be one of the best public access golf destinations in the US, and Japanese owner, Yukihisa Inoue, hired Tom Fazio – very much the man of the moment in the 90s – to lay out two distinct courses on the site: Pine Barrens, which took inspiration from Pine Valley, and Rolling Oaks, that sought to evoke…
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