Top 100 Clubhouse - Golf Podcast · Top 100 Golf Courses

Episode 96: David McLay Kidd Returns & Discusses Streamsong Project

November 24, 2025·1 hr 15 min·4 clips

Streamsong’s fourth course is designed to fit the existing “DNA” of Red, Blue, and Black.

1. Top 100 Clubhouse - Golf Podcast Episode 96 centers on David McLay Kidd’s return and the Streamsong project in central Florida. 2. James Henderson hosts David McLay Kidd, a Scottish golf course architect returning after episode 18, and the discussion matters because McLay Kidd is building Streamsong’s fourth 18-hole course. 3. The episode asks what it takes to add a new course to a site already defined by Red, Blue, and Black, while keeping the place’s “DNA.” 4. McLay Kidd says golf is an amateur game and argues that if it were not for amateur golf, there would be no golf. 5. He says a four-hour round only involves about 15 minutes of actually hitting the ball, which leaves plenty of time to look around the course. 6. He recalls arriving in the United States in the early 1990s and seeing new courses with bunkers on every dogleg, dyed lakes, and greens pushed up “like a birthday cake.” 7. He contrasts those American layouts with Scotland and says the word “links” was being used in ways that did not match the land. 8. He says modern architects such as Bill Coore, Ben Crenshaw, Tom Doak, Gil Hanse, Brian Slonick, Kyle Franz, and Tyler Rae are producing work that he thinks is as good as any era. 9. He says Streamsong represented part of golf’s move away from real estate-first development and toward courses that focus on the golf itself. 10. He describes Streamsong as an old phosphate mine in the middle of Florida with giant white sand piles and a landscape that looks “post-industrial Mad Max.” 11. He says the Red and Blue courses opened in 2012, were his first introduction to the site, and immediately made him want to add something there. 12. He explains that he spent more than a decade trying to work at Streamsong before Kemper Sports hired him to design the fourth course. 13. He says the site’s fourth course leans back toward Red and Blue rather than copying Gill Hanse’s Black course. 14. He says the routing gives every hole a ground avenue of attack, almost no forced carries, and the choice between playing low or throwing the ball in the air. 15. He describes a summer on site in central Florida, says July and August were brutal for a Scot, and says the course is now fully grassed out. 16. He says the site’s angular mined sand can be shaped into steep faces, unlike rounded Scottish sand that tends to melt down when wet. 17. He says the mine remnants make construction easier because the team can manipulate the land without worrying whether a feature looks natural in the traditional sense. 18. He says the wildlife is part of the place too, including baby gators, rattlesnakes, cottonmouths, and one giant gator dragging a deer across a fairway. 19. The conversation stays interview-driven, with Henderson asking design questions and McLay Kidd answering in a blunt, story-heavy, Scottish-accented style. 20. Golfers interested in architecture, Streamsong, or mixed-ability course design will get the most from it. 21. Listeners wanting a narrative story with a lot of strategy talk will probably enjoy it most. 22. People looking for swing tips, tournament gossip, or short-form instruction will probably skip it.

As heard by us

A patient golf-architecture conversation that keeps the land at the center of the design.

This episode starts with a plain defense of amateur golf and then settles into Streamsong's odd, mined-over terrain. James Henderson gives the conversation room to wander, so a question about a Mount Rushmore of modern golf course architects can open into site history,…

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Why you'd press play

Press play if you want StreamSong through a golf-course architect's eye.

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