In many ways, greater Tampa is the Florida area without a solid identity.
Miami has cosmopolitan flavor, Palm Beach attracts snowbirds from the Northeast,
St. Augustine has history, the Panhandle provides an affordable beach
destination for people throughout the Southeast, and Orlando has Disney
World.
What of Tampa-St. Petersburg, the second largest metropolitan area in
Florida? For most people around the country, the city has long been associated
with the futility of its sports teams. In its first season, 1976, the expansion
Buccaneers lost all 14 games, the last NFL team to go winless in a season. The
team then lost the first 12 games of the 1977 season before earning its first
win.
The Tampa Rays had similar difficulties since their expansion season in 1998.
In their first 10 seasons, they have finished last in American League East nine
times. (They were next to last in 2004.) And from 1997 to 2001, the Tampa Bay
Lightning became the first NHL team to lose 50 games in four consecutive
seasons.
But this is Florida, so the sun has to break through the clouds eventually.
The Bucs overcame their embarrassing start to win Super Bowl XXXVII in 2002, the
Lightning won the 2004 Stanley Cup and the Rays are currently in first
place.
The Tampa sports outlook is bright these days, and the Innisbrook Resort and
Golf Club, located 25 miles from downtown, is bringing its share of sizzle to
the area's golf scene. In terms of the quantity and quality of its courses, the
900-acre Innisbrook ranks with the best of Florida's considerable roster of
resorts.
The resort has four layouts, including the demanding Island course, which
stretches 7,310 yards and has holes named “Uphill Intimidation,” “Trapped” and
“High Anxiety.”
But the Island is merely an appetizer for Innisbrook's true threat, the
menacingly named Copperhead, which tests players as host of the tour's Florida
Swing event now known as the Transitions Championship. (Copperhead has been on
the tour schedule since 1977, for many years as a PGA-LPGA team event.)
Besides the usual hazards for Florida-sand and water-what makes Copperhead a
unique challenge for the state is its elevation changes, as at the home hole,
which runs uphill 445 yards to an elevated, well-guarded green. This year,
during a windy four days, Sean O'Hair won with a score of 4-under 280, the
highest winning score in relation to par so far this year on tour.
“You've got to drive the ball well,” says 2005 champion Carl Petterson. “If
you don't you're going to struggle. You can't miss the fairways because then you
can't reach the greens. There's too much trouble out there.”
For players who need help hitting more fairways-or with just about any other
problem-Innisbrook has a golf institute offering the expertise of the resort's
director of instruction Lew Smither III and its longtime director of golf Jay
Overton, who has competed on the PGA and Champions tours, and holds the record
for the low round by a club pro in the PGA Championship-66 at the 1988 PGA at
Oak Tree Golf Club, where he finished tied for 17th.
Off the course, Innisbrook offers numerous amenities, including tennis,
fitness center, 6.2-mile jogging course, nature boardwalk, six pools and fishing
on Lake Innisbrook.
