Resort Profile: Innisbrook

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Courtesy of Innisbrook Resort

Innisbrook Resort has a luxurious spa, golf courses, tennis courts and a wide range of activities for the whole family.

Mar. 14, 2010
By LINKS Magazine

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.

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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 the 1976 NFL season, the first for the Buccaneers, the team 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 Bay Rays have 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 won the American League pennant in 2008.

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.

Innisbrook offers numerous amenities, including tennis, fitness center, 6.2-mile jogging course, nature boardwalk, six pools and fishing on Lake Innisbrook. But the headliners at the property are its 72 holes of golf, including the demanding Island course, which stretches 7,310 yards and has holes named "Uphill Intimidation," "Trapped" and "High Anxiety."

The Island is merely an appetizer, though, for Innisbrook's true threat, the menacingly named Copperhead, which tests players as host of the PGA 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. For example, the home hole runs uphill 445 yards to an elevated, well-guarded green.

"You've got to drive the ball well," says 2005 champion Carl Pettersson. "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."