28 I SALAMANDER 2024 |
stretch . Kindly , Innisbrook does warn players of its difficulty ( evocative of the famous warning sign at Bethpage Black in New York ) with an oversize bronze statue of a snake on the 16th tee box , one of the hardest holes on the PGA TOUR . That ’ s where Striker , official guardian of the Snake Pit ( who could easily moonlight as the Slytherin house mascot in Harry Potter ), puts all comers on notice .
“ The Moccasin , The Rattler and The Copperhead are Among The Most Difficult Finishing Holes on the PGA TOUR !” Should one want a before-shot of their impending threeheaded dance with the devil , the hashtag # SnakePitSelfie accompanies said alert . Neither a kneeling bench beneath the serpent , where I could have prayed for mercy , nor the counsel of my playing partner , Director of Golf Andrew Corry , could have thwarted my bailout of a snap hook into the stately Florida pines , a ball flight I had hoped my muscle memory retired in 2022 . The damage : double bogey , par , bogey for a 3-over aggregate .
While my driver might have benefited
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from a visit to the swing doctor prior to my date with Copperhead , the gift of a TOUR-level tee time is the magic of the experience , not the letdown of a rusty swing . Sure , it was fun to rattle off three consecutive pars to close out my wobbly front nine ( golf is , after all , a collection of small victories ), but the true perk was doing it on the same manicured turf that I ’ ve watched the big boys compete on for years . Photoshopped fairways . Ball-eating primary rough . Spick-andspan greens running 12-plus on the Stimpmeter . Copperhead rewards imagination , one of my favorite parts of playing this game .
As the osprey flies , Copperhead ’ s first tee box sits 2,000 yards eastward of St . Joseph Sound in the Gulf of Mexico . There , in a scraggly treetop nest , a mated pair of the chirpy , masked sea hawks served as the unofficial starters for my round , signaling our proximity to the ocean . No matter my coordinates on the globe , a day on the links will forever double as a birdwatching tour – ever the more when I ’ m in the Atlantic Flyway .
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After spotting a couple of orbiting bald eagles on my outward nine , a distant blur of pink triggered my trained eye as I walked up the 11th fairway . The fastmoving freckle of a cloud was multiple par 5s away in length . I raised my binoculars to confirm the skyward sighting . It was , in fact , what I had suspected – a roseate spoonbill , whose Champagnetinted plumage brightened an otherwise haphazard hole where I may or may not have had a run-in or two with oak trees cloaked in Spanish moss . Wings may have eluded me on the scorecard , but the blue Florida sky gifted me with an unexpected avian first .
Outside of the months leading up to the Valspar Championship , Copperhead ’ s conditions are much friendlier on the everyday player . Resortwide , three additional layouts are available for guest play : the South , the North ( nine holes ) and the Island Course , Innisbrook ’ s original routing . The latter showcases one of the most surprising aspects at the resort : its undulating topography , an uncommon golf trait that will make you forget you ’ re
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