The Biltmore Beckons

What makes a golf course stand out? Some are known for their exclusivity, or because of the PGA Tour, some courses have iconic holes or copy them, while others have centuries of history. Florida golf is interesting because, while most of the courses are designed by the famous and legendary designers of our time, up and down the whole state, Florida golf can almost be seen as a cookie cutter category for golf courses, “resort courses” is what they like to call it. Wide open and flat fairways, sticky bermuda from tee box to green, copious bunkers and water left right and center. Oh and don’t forget about the multitude of palm trees swaying around. Most courses adhere to this in Florida, with a few exceptions like Streamsong that really change up what a resort course can be. So, how does a course stand out down here, especially in South Florida, where there are so many courses in such a relatively small space? Well, Crandon Golf Course is basically built onto a sliver of an already tiny island, so it almost feels like playing one of those custom courses on the PGA 2K video game. The Brightline speeds through Miami Shores Golf Course, bisecting fairways and jumpscaring golfers on the 14th tee. The Palm Beach Par 3 lets you flight your wedges 10 yards from the beach, Granada plants you in the most beautiful auburn you’ve ever seen, Miami Springs is the first course in Miami in general. These few examples show how courses use their landscape, design, and history to make themselves unique. But, there is only one course in the area where just driving into the parking lot is enough to evoke feelings of relaxation and gratitude that one usually finds well into their round. Only one course has a combination of the three descriptives so distinct and powerful. No course in Miami does it like the Biltmore.

The Biltmore Hotel and Golf Course has an insane history that has been tracked and detailed throughout the place’s 98 year lifespan. I will not be rehashing this, but some background is necessary to really realize the importance of the golf. Originally created as an opulent hotel in 1926, it served celebrities and political figures until it became a hospital in WWII. After that, it went through periods of abandonment, served as a University of Miami campus, and became a local legend until the 80’s when it was restored as a hotel. Since then, it is a Nationally Registered, probably haunted, and definitely beautiful luxury hotel and golf course. That golf course, man. It is a beauty to the eye, the mind, and really the soul. I mean it when I say it, stepping onto the grounds immediately flips a switch in your brain. The air is almost heavy with the decades upon decades of history, guests from FDR to Obama, golfers from Babe Ruth to Sergio Garcia. Looking up into the bright blue sky and seeing the hotel completely own the space it is taking up, almost as if behind it there is nothing, it’s etched into the sky just like the clouds. The course is always lively, and while it is definitely a fancy hotel and a very nice golf course, there is none of that stuffy feel you get when playing some of the other high level Miami courses. The clubhouse patrons sit on the deck eating the world famous Biltmore brunch while 20 feet away a mix of high level juniors, hacks, and everyone in between chop it up and practice on the gigantic putting green. The pro shop is right in between both of these, a constant flow of people coming in and out as carts zoom by on their way to the 10th hole. The driving range is always packed, on the “regular” side and on the other side of the range where you can find the UM Women’s golf team, Jim McLean’s golf school (5th best in the country), and on the right days, the entire LIV Golf roster. The chipping area is the only facet of the golf facility that is kind of disconnected from this whole melting pot of practice and prep; it’s stuck out behind the 9th fairway. I’ve never even gone there one time in my lifetime of visiting and playing. I like to be in the mix, not just for who I can meet, or what I can experience, but how it makes me feel. Being surrounded by all the other golfers, all at different levels, working on different things, yet brought together by the tractor beam that is the Biltmore, helps me play better golf and become more comfortable playing at a higher level. Whether it is because I eavesdropped on a McLean lesson, or I noticed a certain move that Carlos Boozer did on the putting green, or just the air of hundreds of people waiting eagerly to play golf on a legendary course, the excitement of the endless possibilities that could happen during your round. It is a certain feeling I have yet to experience anywhere else, at least in Florida. And thank God that the golf course design is up to the same standard as everything else at the hotel.

Designed by Donald Ross 100 years ago, although the course has been renovated and redone many times, (it seems like they punch holes in the greens every 2 weeks), they have kept the original routing of the course. Even the old aerial photos from over 90 years ago show that the course has stayed the same, just adding more water to the routing. Even the greens today are the original size they used to be in. Opening and closing with a par 5, a dog leg right and left respectively, almost makes it feel like the round has come full circle, literally. Expect to see bunkers on every single hole, whether it’s a small pot bunker guarding a leveled green or a sprawling curving sea of sand lining the fairway on either side. Miami courses are famous for their water, even when they’re as far inland as the Biltmore. Here, there is a canal that snakes throughout the entire course save for the first 5 holes, which are tucked away into their own corner. Holes 6-9 basically all take place right in front of the hotel, and they are a daring bunch. The 6th lulls you in, a straight on par 4 with a huge green sloping towards you, making it probably the easiest hole to score on in the front 9, other than the 4th hole which has a similar layout. After, it is a par 4 with water splitting the hole in two, a par 3 that never plays less than 190 yards, and a dogleg left par 4 9th hole where the hotel is staring you in the face, eagerly watching the golfers as it has done for years. While the front is physically split into two parts, each bunched together, the back 9 has a lot of movement to it. The course is very wide open, but most holes on the back do not run parallel to a hole you have just played. It gives you a feeling of always being propelled forward, and it keeps the round in a state of flow that can only be decimated by a fully booked Sunday round, when the course can sometimes be backed up. Otherwise, you are always moving in a new direction, seeing new water features, new mansions off to the side of the green, new trees that force you to draw your shots to get that perfect position. This is the type of golf course where each hole is so distinct and unique that they could be named. Some fairways are a clear shot while others are elevated in the middle, hiding the green out of sight. Other holes, three in total, force you to hit your approach shot over the water onto the green. Sometimes you have to play towards the hotel, other times the tennis courts, other times your approach shot if goes long would end up in the 23k sq foot, 600k gallon pool. It’s one of the largest in the country, another one of the Biltmore’s quirks like its haunted rooms or its cages of parakeets in the lobby. It only adds to the fun, and to the legend.

I’ve spoken before about golf courses and their character. Some courses have a storied legacy that when you look around during your time of play, you can see in your mind the moments, imagining how they must have played out. At the Biltmore, when I go down to read a putt, or pick up a blade of grass to test the wind, or when I grind my feet around to get set in a bunker, I can hear it speaking to me. The voice in my head that I listen to when I play, that guides my motions and my decisions, is all of a sudden not entirely mine. It is the course itself, and the thousands of people that have played there. By giving up that control, by not squeezing what I want out of the course, by not forcing it to give me the score I want, leads me to play better than anywhere else. Like how Byrson said he was going to dismantle Augusta, only to get absolutely destroyed by the course, Biltmore is similar in that way. You must respect it; I don’t think there is a single golfer that plays there that was alive when it first opened. It’s seen more, done more, been through more than any golfer lucky enough to step onto its hallowed fairways. To not play within its flow, to make decisions that seem in the back of your mind forced or incorrect, is a death sentence. This is not a course you beat down; this is a course that can give you a beat down. 

I have a friendly competition with the Biltmore that has been going back and forth for four years now. I try and try and try but cannot ever birdie the 18th hole, the sweeping dogleg left that allows you to catch a view of about every part of the course you have just played, as if it wants to remind you how lucky you are to have gone through the journey you just did. Anyways, the hotel always chuckles a bit when I get to the tee box, I can hear it in the wind as it blows by. It knows how bad I want it. I look at it every time I arrive to the course and tell it that today is the day I finally beat you and get my birdie. It snickers. It likes to mess with me, make me think I have a chance. No matter how badly I play, whether I am on track for an 85 or a 105, I always have a good tee shot on this hole. A lot of the times, my second shot is even better, I’ve even gotten onto the green in two. But, this is where the Biltmore strikes. Trees, elevation, the pool, bunkers, the largest green on the course all come together at once to absolutely smash my hopes and dreams. I’ve turned eagle chances into bogeys, my longest drive ever was only enough for my only par on that hole, many of the ridiculous recovery shots I’ve hit out of the trees that the hole curves around have done nothing to make my score competitive. It is the perfect finishing hole, the sun sets right on the fairway, making the approach even that much harder during the late afternoon rounds. All of the beauty of the course and the hotel, its history and legacy, and its potential to still become even more, is rolled into a few moments on the 18th. I take advantage of this moment every time, using it as motivation to make my last swings my best ones in a usually futile effort. Nonetheless, it makes me ecstatic knowing that I have the perfect excuse to come back and play this course all over again, my rival on the 18th awaiting my return. I always try to walk the 18th fairway with a smile, no matter my result or my score. The course’s history grounds me and brings me back to the roots of golf, why it was created and what it can do for you. Even though I probably just pulled a 3 wood off onto the 10th tee box, leaving me an impossible up and down. Faintly, but surely, I can hear the hotel laughing again in the wind. I laugh back.