It was a full-circle moment for David McLay Kidd. The architect had walked a million steps the previous summer, crafting the fourth 18-hole course at Streamsong. He fought for this job. He knew he could create a course that would complement the ones built by his peers: Red by Bill Coore/Ben Crenshaw; Blue by Tom Doak and Black by Gil Hanse. The job wouldn’t be easy—he called it one of the toughest of his career. But he sweated over it throughout 2025, hoping it’d be in the conversation to be among the best at Streamsong.

Now he stood at Streamsong's rooftop bar the night before playing his creation, Bone Valley, for the first time in months. The course had been open for a few weeks. A select group of resort guests could secure a preview tee time on Kidd’s course, and they recognized him at the bar. They started coming up to shake his hand, telling him how much fun his creation was. Thousands of hours later, the feedback was validation for the architect’s vision.

If you’ve visited one of our country’s great multi-course destinations like Bandon Dunes, Sand Valley or Pinehurst, the fun after playing them is comparing the courses. Coming up with your own list, arguing with your buddies—or strangers in a bar—about why one is better than the other.

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Bone Valley now sits alongside Streamsong’s other courses and is firmly in the conversation for the best at Streamsong Resort. Perhaps even more than that. I asked a group of Golf Digest course-ranking panelists who recently visited the Florida destination to rank their favorite courses at the resort. Perhaps recency bias affected their results, but we train our panelists to be objective, and they’re as well-traveled a group as any.

My favorite part of the survey of our panelists is that each course got a vote #1-4. So even though 89 percent of our surveyed group had Bone Valley as its #1 or #2 course, there was still 10 percent of the group who has the new course at #3 or #4. There's no total consensus.

To Kidd's original intent, to create a course worthy of being in the conversation, it's clear that he has.

There are so many unique and intriguing things about Bone Valley. Kidd's team took time to study the intracacies of the three existing 18-hole courses at Streamsong, noting what they liked (and didn't) about each. The course would have a Streamsong ethos while standing out. It's clear it accomplished that. At one point while playing Bone Valley three days in a row, I asked my playing partners, "If someone dropped you here blind-folded, where in the world would you guess you were?" You might guess Nebraska prairieland, or you might just have no clue at all. This isn't a faux Irish or Scotish links. It's purely its own. 

The most talked-about hole will probably be the 14th (above), a par 5 that was the last hole for Kidd and his hole to build. He said he felt like it was the last lap of a race he had trained for years to run: "If I did anything less than bold, I knew I'd regret it." 

His idea was wild—build up two massive dunes and run a fairway in the middle—so that golfers' second shots would have to split the two. His design partners thought it was crazy at first. They started with the width of a golf cart between the dunes, and kept working out until they felt it was right. It's unlike anything you've seen—perhaps outside of the opening tee shot at Tobacco Road or the second hole at the upcoming Pinehurst #11. 

There's the enormous, 25-foot-high built-up dune in the middle of the ninth fairway that emulates a shark's tooth, which can be found in the sand around Bone Valley. After all, this was the ocean floor millions of years ago. More recently, Streamsong was used for phosphate-mining, and the sandy surface, you might've heard, is perfect for shaping golf holes.

In fact, as far as the existing land goes, this was probably the most unremarkable of the four sites. Kidd moved millions of cubic yards of sand to mold his holes and build bunkers that transition through the surrounding sand. Kidd says probably about 20 percent of the bunkers were there, the rest were all created, but designed to look like they had been sitting there. 

The green at the 11th hole is wild—you'll want to spend a few minutes hitting different putts to various hole locations. Then one of the great moments of the round comes as you walk through a cut-through in the dunes as the 12th hole reveals itself. Short, devilish with an intimidating row of bunkers beckoning. Come up short, and you might be eyeing double bogey on the 130-yard hole.

Here are a few comments from our panelists justifying Bone Valley being among their top 2:

"The course, its rustic, "natural" man-enhanced surroundings, the scale of the overall property, and the attention to detail paid to maintenance and landscaping, is aesthetically superior. Though it mostly follows the current design zeitgeist of wide fairways, few trees, large, undulating greens, and closely-mown grass surfaces around green complexes, Bone Valley seems to balance all elements of design for its rustic location and climate: it exudes character."

"Nearly on every hole the golfer can choose his poison, variably flighted shots in the air, or close along the ground. The well-contoured greens, several that ran away from the approach with a few featuring false front and side slope, held well-struck shots reasonably given that it is a brand new course, while the approaches were sufficiently firm to encourage the ground game. Routed in all directions with some mildly turning fairways (most to the left), the course does not force a line of play, instead allowing the player to choose the angle and shape of the shot based on his abilities and risk assessment. With a nice mix of short, medium and long holes for each par type as well as the ever-present waste areas on the periphery and formal bunkering often interfering with the line of instinct (direct) to the hole, the course provides not only excellent variety, but also generates compelling interest throughout the routing."

"Bone Valley really made me think the most, and allowed me to try the most different shots off the tee. The routing has one drivable par 4 on each side, which makes it so it’s scorable but also challenging."

"Parts that I thought were done well: 1. Green shapes and contours had interesting variety 2. Short par 4s made you really think off the tee; these really helped the overall score. 3. Did well with aesthetics looking at hole and greens. 4. Good conditions for a new course. 5. Overall, sand areas /bunkers were interesting looking. Parts that could have been better 1. Having water very much in play on a blind first tee shot felt like out of place with the rest of the design. 2. Not much dogleg to the holes that have very slight doglegs. 3. A few too many sand hazards/areas to carry off the tee. More so aesthetically, it felt repetitive."

We had one panelist put Bone Valley fourth. Here was his reasoning: "The biggest reason is that the land is much more interesting on Red and Blue than on Black and BV. The land forms and ridges presented the opportunity for more “Wow, I can’t wait to play this hole and hit this shot” moments for me."

For more feedback from our panel, you'll have to wait until our Best New rankings come out in the beginning of 2027. It'll also be interesting to see how Bone Valley scores in our America's 100 Greatest Public rankings—compared to its Streamsong peers and nationally.

Only Bandon Dunes, Sand Valley, Pinehurst and Streamsong can boast at least three courses ranked inside the top 50 of our public rankings. Will the Florida resort get all of its four courses inside the top 50? 

If the early returns for Kidd is any indication, he's definitely in the conversation.