Fresh juice at Citrus Farms

Destination golf is usually remote and scenic, two adjectives rarely bestowed on central Florida’s interior. But there’s a hint of both on the sandy Brooksville Ridge north of Tampa, where Cabot Citrus Farms is pressing fresh juice from a golf property that went unappreciated for years.

For its first three decades, the property was known as World Woods, a poorly maintained cousin to New Jersey’s Pine Valley. Cabot’s Ben Cowan-Dewar was rebuffed for 15 years until finally acquiring it in 2021, when he set some unconventional designers to work reimagining the original 45 holes. That work is ripening this year.

The former Pine Barrens course, now called The Karoo after the distinctive call of the sandhill crane, has been reshaped by architect Kyle Franz. The new Karoo is wide, playable and easily walked, with intricate waste bunkers, alternate fairways and enormous, sprawling putting surfaces that are draped with contour, deception and unusual recoveries — “adventure golf,” Franz says. It’s hard to lose a ball, but strokes add up drip by drip around the greens.

The former Rolling Oaks course, now The Roost, is being reworked by Franz, Ran Morrissett and Mike Nuzzo. Nuzzo is also building two short courses of 10 and 11 holes — The Squeeze and The Wedge, which can be played as a second round or casually in larger groups. Nuzzo has made a career of building unconventional courses for unconventional owners, which made him a perfect fit at Cabot Citrus Farms.

Also raising the property above its previous incarnation is a walkable village with plans for restaurants, pools, wellness facilities and rental-pool cottages, many of which have already been sold to Canadian buyers. Golfers should have plenty of reasons to stick around after golf, and could use Citrus Farms as a base to visit Streamsong, another sandy golf resort southeast of Tampa.

Cabot Citrus Farms opens for preview play in April, with an official launch in fall, 2024. Green fees are not yet set.

(This was an unpublished sidebar with the previously linked Saint Lucia story in The Globe and Mail)