Orlando Golf - Course, Resort and Package Information

In the saturated world that is Florida golf resorts, the longstanding trend toward diversity and expansion has become overwhelming. Rather than being a relaxing experience, negotiating one's way around the sprawling campuses of the modern resort - often with five golf courses located at five different locations and clubhouses, shuttles, and infrastructure galore - now requires an extra half hour and a Sherpa.

If these southern climate golf resorts currently mirror runaway suburban sprawl, perhaps a counter-trend toward efficiency is the remedy. Among the first signs of such simplification in Florida is the stately new Ritz-Carlton Resort in Naples and its adjacent golf facility, Tiburón Golf Club.

The 295-room Ritz-Carlton Resort opened in the spring of 2002, regaled in all the elegance and taste expected from such a name, but with a sporty twist. What instantaneously separates it from the competition is a singular purpose. As sophisticated as the accommodations are, this Ritz-Carlton is a pureblooded golf resort.

Numerous activities beyond golf abound - you may feel the urge to hold a meeting here, play tennis or swim, or grab a bite at one of two restaurants followed by the indulgence of fine spirits and cigars at The Bar or the Card and Billiard Rooms - the total experience cannot be separated from the game.

The resort and golf club are set in a location several miles inland, sequestered from the hullabaloo that defines Naples shoreline living. The isolation adds to the sense of purpose. The five-story, tri-winged hotel calmly looks out over the expansive property where the Greg Norman designed courses swirl out over the resort's 800 acres, with no homes in sight. Next to it is the Tiburón clubhouse, a smaller version of the hotel yet grand in its own right.

This may be the only golf place in southwest Florida where flat earth actually serves the setting. Despite the lack of elevation change - the majority of the site was once a tomato farm, the remainder covered in pine, flatwoods, and saw palmettos - Tiburón possesses a rare visual power. The 36-hole golf track is cut wall-to-wall at fairway height and bordered by crushed coquina-shell waste areas and indigenous wetlands. Greg Norman's Southwest Florida version of the stacked sod-wall bunker creates shallow pools of shadow and light, eerie eclipses next to the bald, low-profile greens.