By Ryan Herrington
Sam Horsfield’s career-best on the European Tour is a 62, shot in the final round of the Scandinavian Invitation last August. Yet the 23-year-old Englishman can go lower, as his scorecard from a recent round at Streamsong Black in Florida would indicate.

A 59 to brighten your Sundays, courtesy of @hr59sam ? pic.twitter.com/jfanDCkUrw

— The European Tour (@EuropeanTour) May 31, 2020

Suffice it to say that’s an awful lot of circles beside his name. A front-nine 29 included five birdies and an eagle, which he duplicated while shooting a back-nine 30. Given the par of 73 for the course, that amounts to a 14-under 59, an accomplishment that’s never been achieved in a PGA Tour or European Tour event.

Shooting a 59 anywhere is impressive, but to do it at Streamsong Black is pretty amazing considering a few things about the Gil Hanse course that opened in 2018. Golf Digest architecture writer Ron Whitten has described the course’s putting surfaces as “the boldest, biggest set of greens in North America.”

And that eagle 3 on the par-5 fourth hole is something we only wish we could have seen. We don’t know if Horsfield was playing from the tips, but if so, the hole feels way longer than the 601 yards listed on the card thanks to a very elevated green.

We’ve got to wonder, too, whether the wind that frequently serves as the course’s best defense was down a bit given not just Horsfield’s score, but that of two of his playing partners. (Sierra shot a five-under 68 and Gordo four-under 69. How would you like to have posted those pretty nifty rounds only to get trounced by Horsfield?)

Horsfield, currently 222nd in the World Rankings, opened his 2020 European Tour season with a 64 but in seven starts had made only three cuts.

The post If you’ve never seen a scorecard with 10 birdies and two eagles, check this out from a European Tour pro’s 59 at Streamsong Black appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

Monterey Peninsula (Dunes)
The original course at Monterey Peninsula Country Club, just up 17 Mile Drive from Pebble Beach, has a pedigree most clubs would cherish. Originally routed by Seth Raynor in the mid-1920s, it was completed after his death by Robert Hunter and Alister MacKenzie. In the late 1990s, it was refashioned by Rees Jones, who moved the par-3 10th green (above) to a spot right above the crashing Pacific surf. Yet the Dunes lacked the sex appeal of its much-younger sister, the Shore Course, founded in 1961 and reinvented by the late Mike Strantz, who made it his artistic masterpiece in 2004. To remedy that, the club hired Tom Fazio (Strantz’s former mentor), who teamed with his son, Logan, longtime associate Andy Banfield and former associates Tim Jackson and David Kahn on a plan that integrates holes into the peninsula’s unique environment. Sandscape zones now frame most holes, ranging from hillsides of exposed sand to large, reconstituted ocean dunes. Once-straight fairways now zig and zag around jagged bunkers. Nearly all the greens are diagonal to lines of play, with the fourth green a dogleg wrapped around a sand hill. Drainage channels serve as prominent hazards along some holes, and trees were removed to open vistas of the sea. The Dunes Course now lives up to its name and is a worthy companion to The Shore.

Courtesy of Streamsong/LC Lambrecht

Streamsong (Black)
Streamsong Resort in Central Florida already has a dynamic duo: the Tom Doak-designed Blue course and the Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw-designed Red both are in the top 25 of Golf Digest’s America’s 100 Greatest Public Courses. That’s a tough lead-in for Streamsong’s third act, the new Black course (par-3 fifth, above), one mile southeast on reclaimed land not nearly as dramatic as the massive dunes created by phosphate-mining operations. Still, architect Gil Hanse was enthused by the opportunities of the low-plateau site. “It’s as good a golf ground as we’ve ever worked with,” he says. “It’s also the largest piece of land we’ve ever had.” The routing changes direction frequently—wide fairways twist and turn, with several playing uphill to greens perched on the horizon. The par-5 fourth encounters a meandering stream, and 18 edges a vast, attractive wetlands savannah. To further distinguish the Black, Hanse gave it a “Royal Melbourne treatment,” with vertical-edged bunkers similar to those he used at the Rio Olympic Golf Course. You’ll find crisp edges, abrupt slopes and a couple of the deepest bunkers on the property. The Black will open late in September 2017, with advance tee times available now with a room reservation. Says Hanse: “I hope people put the Black right alongside the Red and Blue.”

Courtesy of Mark Degnan/Torrey Pines

Torrey Pines (North)
Phil Mickelson campaigned for years to have La Jolla, Calif., upgrade its North Course at Torrey Pines to complement the championship South Course. His lobbying, under state law, prevented Mickelson from bidding on the redesign. Tom Weiskopf, who won his first PGA Tour event at Torrey Pines in 1968, got the bid over a field that included Robert Trent Jones Jr. and (surprise!) LPGA player Natalie Gulbis. To provide more challenge to tour players, but not frustrate the 80,000 average golfers who flock to the North each year, Weiskopf enlarged and flattened the greens (so they can be sped up when needed), surrounded many with chipping areas, relocated and reshaped all bunkers and improved irrigation. He also reversed the nines, so golfers finish in glorious coastal scenery, and created two new closing holes, the par-5 17th, with a canyon along its left, and the long par-4 18th. The North is now perfectly balanced, with all the par 3s (15th, pictured) and par 5s facing different directions. Each nine also has 21 bunkers (down from a total of 58). Though the South is still the showcase draw—it’ll host its second U.S. Open in 2021—a round at the North Course is no longer an afterthought.

Main image Courtesy of Chip Henderson/Monterey Peninsula Country Club

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