I drove past a church sign at the side of the road that asked a simple question: “Where is God leading you?” To Streamsong, I thought. Somewhere ahead of me, in the hushed heart of Central Florida, Bone Valley was waiting: David McLay Kidd’s new course at Streamsong, the resort’s fourth championship layout, and an invitation to play it well before its grand opening in 2027.

Drive south from Orlando and Florida slowly starts to change. The theme parks and hotels fall away. The roads grow quieter. Farms and ranches replace resorts. I passed through Mulberry, a small town that still calls itself the Phosphate Capital of the World, and the first hint of the land I was heading for. Cattle graze beside the highway, railroad crossings begin to interrupt the journey, and the churches seem to appear with increasing frequency.

At Bradley Crossing I was stopped by a freight train that appeared to have no end. Wagon after wagon trundled past my windscreen before the locomotive disappeared into the distance with two long blasts of its horn. On the radio, God’s Country FM pumped out one country hit after another. Perhaps, then, it’s no wonder that arriving at Streamsong felt like something akin to a religious awakening.

The arrival at Streamsong

The scale of the place is, simply, jaw-dropping. Streamsong sits seemingly in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by vast expanses of Central Florida. Finding it feels like part of the adventure. Once you do, the reward is a golf resort that appears to have been carved from the wilderness around it. The driveway alone runs for the best part of two miles, through lakes, forests and immaculate grasslands.

Eventually a sign presents the first decision. Golf, to the right. Hotel, to the left. I turned right. More grassland. More space. Hardly a blade out of place. Then another decision: Red and Blue courses one way, Black and Bone Valley the other. Streamsong doesn’t have one golf clubhouse, you see. It has several. Everything here is built on an epic scale. 

The reveal: Bone Valley, Streamsong

My first sight of Bone Valley was everything I’d hoped it would be. As the road reached the crest of the hill on which the clubhouse sits, Bone Valley opened up in front of me on a glorious Saturday morning in Florida, and the sight of it took my breath away. Down and to my right was the sort of practice facility golfers dream about: an enormous putting green, a full-turf driving range and short-game areas stretching across the landscape. Ahead sat the clubhouse, low-slung and modern, glass running from floor to ceiling. Beyond it lay dramatic land: space, sand, water and dunes, and in between, glimpses of verdant fairways and greens. 

My bag was whisked away and my car valet parked; the welcome was warm and genuine. But I just couldn’t take my eyes off this slice of golf heaven. I politely turned down a buggy ride to the range in favour of a walk that would let me take it all in and gather myself. It was there that I met my caddie, Nick Thomas. Born in Gainesville, Florida, Nick played college golf against the likes of Brooks Koepka, Tony Finau and Daniel Berger. Easy-going, funny and immediately reassuring, he had already played Bone Valley twice, and walked it a few times more. This would be his sixth loop. He already suspected Bone Valley might be the best course at Streamsong. But more on that later.

Alongside him was Jimmy O’Brien, originally from Boston, who came to Streamsong by way of Atlanta, Georgia, and whose Scottish and Irish roots remain a source of obvious pride. Completing our group were Steven and Jack, two friends from Omaha, Nebraska, who run their own removals firm and were a very long way from home. Bone Valley will do that. It’s going to draw golfers from far and wide. Together we set off on what increasingly felt less like a round of golf and more like an adventure into the unknown.

Why Bone Valley matters: history of Streamsong’s newest course

Bone Valley’s own story began millions of years ago. The resort sits on reclaimed phosphate-mining land still known as Bone Valley, named for the extraordinary fossil beds beneath it. Prehistoric seas repeatedly covered this part of Florida and, across millions of years, the region preserved the remains of creatures ranging from giant crocodiles and megalodon sharks to land mammals including mastodons.

When the seas receded, they left vast deposits of phosphate rock, and more than a century of mining subsequently uncovered fossils in remarkable condition. The Mosaic Company, which founded Streamsong, set out to give that mined land a new purpose. The result is something few people expect to find in Florida: dunes, lakes, ridgelines and great sandy expanses in a state better known for flat golf. 

So the name is much more than simply clever branding. Fossils, including megalodon teeth, were uncovered during construction, and the course’s emblem is an alligator skeleton. Bone Valley sounds like something that could only exist here.

The architectural stakes were just as high. Streamsong already had three celebrated courses: Red by Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw, Blue by Tom Doak, and Black by Gil Hanse and Jim Wagner. Bone Valley adds David McLay Kidd, making Streamsong the only resort where original courses by all four sit side by side. Kidd felt the pressure. With Red, Blue and Black “really, really good” right alongside him, “you can’t mail it in,” he said. It was like being picked for a Ryder Cup team: if you’re selected, you have to perform.

His ambition was not to build something brutal or merely beautiful. It was adventure. He wanted golfers lost in the experience, wondering what lay around the next corner, and he set himself a wonderfully simple test: players should reach the 14th tee and feel disappointed that there were only five holes left. That was the question I carried with me. Reach the 14th tee, look at what remains, and see whether five holes feels like far too few.

Lose yourself in the wonder of Bone Valley

There is something deliberately otherworldly about Streamsong. The isolation helps, obviously. But the design of the experience leans into it too. When we played, there were no hole numbers on the flags to remind you where you were in the round. Your caddie leads the way, and the land does the rest.

It felt almost as though Streamsong was encouraging me to stop counting. Forget which hole you’re playing. Forget how many remain. Simply look at the landscape in front of you and work out how you want to play through it. The result is strangely disorientating. Wonderful, but disorientating. At times I genuinely lost track of where we were in the round. Out there, Kidd’s philosophy made perfect sense.

Playing Bone Valley Streamsong: the front nine

There’s room off the 1st tee. Lots of it. Bone Valley’s opening fairway rolls out wide and rumpled beyond a great sandy waste area dotted with islands of native grass, and the invitation is obvious: swing freely. I did, and was left with 129 yards. A 9-iron. Simple, I thought. It isn’t.

The lake creeps in from the left, reeds and all. Dunes and fiery bands of native grass flank the right. The green is stretched wide and shallow between the two, rippling like a sheet caught in the wind. Above it all, on the skyline, stands the old windmill beside the 9th on Streamsong Black. The contrast is instructive. Black’s greens sprawl. This one gives you almost nothing to play with. From the very first approach, Bone Valley asks one question above all others: how good is your distance control? Nick had the answer. “Beyond the flag. And two yards right.”

I did as I was told. The ball landed long and right, paused, then turned and trickled back down the slope, settling seven feet away. I missed the putt. Nick’s read had been perfect; mine hadn’t.

The 2nd, a gentle right-to-left dogleg squeezed between a dune ridge and a long, reedy lake, is one of the best holes on the course. A solid drive down the right centre, then the same lesson in reverse. “Left of the flag,” said Nick. The ball found the slope, took the turn and rolled down to three feet. A kick-in birdie. Two holes in, Bone Valley had made its point. Don’t fight the ground. Read it, trust it, and let it bring the ball home.

Whatever you may have read about these greens being small and flat, only the first half is true. They are compact, yes, but they heave and roll like an ocean in a heavy swell: humps, hollows and slopes everywhere, slick and firm, and reluctant to take much check. You can strike the ball beautifully from tee to green and still be utterly bemused once the putter is in your hands. It is a game within the game, and it demands imagination, touch and, above all, judgement of pace.

By the 3rd, a 200-yard par-3 framed by crisp, deliberate bunkers, I’d started to believe it. A feather short of the green, my ball rolled back down one slope. I used another to bring my chip shot back to within six feet. A pupil, briefly, doing his homework. A par. One under the card after three.

Then the 4th reminded me who was in charge: a 585-yard par-5 that squeezes you through a chute of grassy dunes before bursting open onto a field of sand that seems to run to the horizon. I explored more of it than I wanted to. Bone Valley gives, and then it takes. The 5th, the hardest hole on the card, shows just how bold Kidd was prepared to be, with a vast sweep of sand and a thin vein of water slicing diagonally across its path.

Then comes the 6th, a short par-4 and the course’s great temptation. From the tee, the green looks almost reachable, with nothing in the way but a field of sand and a little nerve. I had the nerve. I very nearly had the distance. The ball pitched a whisker short, and I was left with one of golf’s toughest shots: the long bunker shot, all the way to the green. Somehow it came off, and I walked away with a par and a grin. The 7th, a tough par-3, soon wiped that smile off my face.

Wild Florida, true adventure

You are never truly alone out on Bone Valley. There’s always something wild around the next turn. Turkey vultures wheel lazily overhead. Ospreys patrol the lakes, waiting for a bass to stray too close to the surface. At one point something bigger glided across the dunes, too big for a hawk and too far away to call. An eagle, I’d like to think. I’ll never know.

Closer to the ground, a minuscule frog (so small it could fit on top of a ball marker) hopped straight across my line before Nick and I nudged him back towards the long grass. That long grass comes with its own warning. Before we teed off, Charlie, the starter, told us to watch our step. Rattlesnakes live here. And then there are the alligators.

Nick told us about the one once hauled out of the lake beside the 18th green on Black. Enormous, he said. Then he showed me a picture, which I won’t share here. Another caddie leaned in. The one living in there now, he reckoned, is bigger still. Golf here feels as though it has been introduced into the landscape, rather than the landscape being tidied up for golf. So admire the wildlife, keep your distance, and always let the gators play through.

Caddie Jimmy O’Brien crosses one of Bone Valley’s wooden bridges, en route to the 10th tee at Streamsong.

The turn: into the wind

The 9th, a 580-yard par-5 from the back tees, is long and unrelenting, and I was grateful for every yard the breeze had given us so far. Then we crossed the wooden bridge behind the green, Jimmy marching ahead with a bag on each shoulder, and everything changed. The wind, which felt like it had been politely pushing us along all morning, swung round and met us full in the face.

The front nine had been Bone Valley’s lesson. The back nine would be its exam.

Playing Bone Valley: the back nine

If the wind made the back nine harder, it didn’t make it any less beautiful. The 10th, 11th and 12th are as strong a three-hole stretch as Bone Valley offers. At the 11th I hit as good a drive as I managed all day, then took dead aim with a pitching wedge. It never left the flag. It hit the flag. For a split second it looked like dropping, before it spun back off the front edge of the green. Golf, in a single shot.

The 12th is officially the easiest hole on the course. It may also be the best of its short holes, which on a course with par-3s this strong is high praise. The green sits up among the dunes, wrapped in small, deep bunkers carved into the sand. Into the wind, it took a 7-iron to reach a hole that measures barely 150 yards from the back. I sent it straight over the top of the flag and missed the putt coming back, but I didn’t much care. It’s a hole to stand and look at for a while. Happily, there’s a drinks stop just to the right of the tee to help you do exactly that.

And so to the 14th tee, and David McLay Kidd’s test. Five holes left. I’ll come back to the answer.

The 14th is an epic par-5, and for once I played it the way it asks to be played. A solid par, and the start of a tremendous finishing stretch. At the 15th, another short par-4 dangled the same temptation as the 6th. This time I didn’t decide alone. Nick handed me a 3-wood without a word, and the ball finished five yards short of the green. A par, and a birdie that got away, but I’d learned my lesson. Trust the man with the bag.

On the walk up the 15th, Jimmy stopped in one of the open sandy areas, bent down and held something out in his palm. A fossilised shark’s tooth, grey and triangular, roughly two inches long, its root worn smooth by time. The kind of find Bone Valley is famous for. The course had been living up to its name all day. Here was the proof, sitting in a caddie’s hand.

The 16th is another superb par-3: a small, tiered green set into the dunes, with lakes and grassy hills stretching away behind it. It’s a proper examination of your short irons. I failed it, missing slightly left and handing back a shot, but it’s a hole I’d happily play again and again.

The 17th is a lovely hole. You tee off down among the reeds and drive uphill to a generous fairway. By now I was running low on energy. This is a big piece of land and a big walk. But what a walk.

Bone Valley is walk-only, and you wouldn’t want it any other way. You feel the land beneath your feet: the slopes, the run-offs, every fold of the ground the caddies had been reading for us all day. Our friends from Nebraska admitted they play 99 per cent of their golf in a buggy. I play about 1 per cent of mine in one. For them it was an adventure. For me it felt like coming home.

Is it really over? A final stretch 

The 18th is a demanding par-5 and a fitting final examination. A good drive, a poor second up the slope to the left, and then a scramble to find a green that sits low beside the lake. Bone Valley had beaten me. But I’d played it the way it deserves to be played: on foot, eyes open, with a caddie who knew every inch of it. I’d brought my best golf for 15 holes. Next time, I’ll bring it for 18.

So much of Streamsong is in the details. The small ones. We shook hands, removed our caps, and stood for a moment looking back down the hole.

Is it really over?

There was the answer to Kidd’s test. Not a feeling on the 14th tee, but a question on the 18th green.

A buggy rattled across the bridge behind the green to carry us back up to the clubhouse. There was room for all of us, bar one. Jimmy O’Brien set off up the hill on foot, a bag on each shoulder.

The rest of us slumped into our seats, sad it was over, exhilarated by what we’d seen, and exhausted by the heat, the sunshine and the walk. Every one of us would have gone straight back out and done it all again. Well, maybe after a tall, cold drink or two.

Streamsong sunset over Bone Valley

That drink came in the clubhouse, over dinner, in a room full of people high on life after a day at Streamsong. I sat beside Paul, a Brit who lives in Bermuda. He’d stayed three nights and played every course on the property. Bone Valley, he said, was at the top of his list. Nick had suspected as much that morning. And around the clubhouse, the whispers said the same thing.

I should make a confession. Bone Valley was the first course I had ever played at Streamsong. Quite a place to start. I can’t yet tell you whether it’s the best of them; I’ll let you know when I’ve played the rest. For now, it is enough to say that Bone Valley is a serious examination of golf on an epic piece of land: strategic, dramatic, delightful, and one of those days you never forget. I’ve been lucky enough to walk Royal County Down, NGLA, Pinehurst, Royal Dornoch and a good many more besides: places that get under your skin and never leave. Streamsong belongs in that company. Not because it looks like any of them, but because of how it made me feel: like a boy again, wide-eyed, with no idea what lay around the next corner.

As the sun began its plunge towards the horizon, dozens of us drifted outside to capture the moment and cement the memory. The great glass walls of the clubhouse turned orange, then gold. Groups gathered around Streamsong’s tall steel S, silhouetted against the sky, posing for photographs they would show their friends for years. Beyond them, the dunes and the sand and the grasses of Bone Valley slipped quietly into shadow.

I’ve spent a long time since trying to find the words for this place. I’m still not sure I have. But I know this. David McLay Kidd wanted golfers to reach the 14th tee and wish there were more than five holes left. Watching the last of the light slip from Bone Valley, I’d have settled for another 18 right there and then. I’m already counting the days until I go back.

*Ben was a guest of Streamsong. To book a trip or for more information, visit StreamsongResort.com

BONE VALLEY STREAMSONG SCORECARD

BONE VALLEY AT A GLANCE

The course

• Designer: David McLay Kidd
• Location: Streamsong Resort, Polk County, Central Florida
• Par: 72
• Length:  7,190 yards from the back tees, with four tee sets plus a Black/Silver combo, down to 4,855 yards
• Character: wide, rumpled fairways, vast sandy waste areas, native grasses and contoured greens
• Don’t miss: the 2nd, the stretch from the 10th to the par-3 12th, and the finishing run from the 14th

The Bone Valley scorecard at Streamsong, with four tee sets plus a Black/Silver combo, ranging from 4,855 to 7,190 yards on David McLay Kidd’s par-72 layoutPlaying it

• Walking: walk-only, with caddies. Recommend Nick Thomas and Jimmy O’Brien
• Clubhouse: Stunning, modern, glass panelled, shared with Streamsong Black
• Best for: golfers who love strategy, the ground game and creative putting
• Our tip: aim away from the flag, let the slopes feed the ball, and trust your caddie’s reads
• Practice facilities: turf range, large putting green, extensive short game areas 

Dates and booking

• Preview play: from 30 October 2026
• Grand opening: 26 January 2027
• Booking: through Streamsong Resort by visiting StreamsongResort.com

Also at Streamsong

Red (Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw), Blue (Tom Doak) and Black (Gil Hanse and Jim Wagner), plus The Chain, a 19-hole short course, and The Bucket, a 36-hole putting course.

Bone Valley Streamsong: FAQs

Who designed Bone Valley at Streamsong?

Bone Valley was designed by Scottish architect David McLay Kidd. It makes Streamsong the only resort where original courses by Kidd, Gil Hanse (Black), Tom Doak (Blue) and Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw (Red) sit side by side.

When does Bone Valley open?

Preview play begins on 30 October 2026, and the course’s grand opening is scheduled for 26 January 2027.

Can the public play Bone Valley?

Bone Valley is part of Streamsong Resort, so tee times are booked through the resort. Limited preview tee times are being offered ahead of the official opening; check with Streamsong for current availability and packages.

How long is Bone Valley?

Bone Valley is 7,190 yards from the back tees, with four tee sets plus a Black/Silver combo, down to 4,855 yards.

Is Bone Valley walking only?

Yes. Bone Valley is walking only, ideally with a caddie, and the experience is far richer on foot.

Is Bone Valley hard?

The fairways are generous, but the compact, heavily contoured greens are a serious test of distance control and putting. A local caddie’s reads are invaluable.

Is Bone Valley the best course at Streamsong?

It is too early for a definitive verdict, but the caddies and early players we spoke to already rank it at or near the top.

Why is it called Bone Valley?

The name comes from the region’s famous fossil beds, formed when prehistoric seas covered this part of Florida. Fossils, including megalodon teeth, were found during construction, and the course emblem is an alligator skeleton.

Will I see alligators at Streamsong?

Very possibly. Alligators, ospreys, turkey vultures and rattlesnakes all live on the property. Keep your distance and stay out of the long grass.