Travel Insider: Florida's best, three must-play resorts

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Prairie Club

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Travel Insider

A lot of pros get into golf course design but how many own their own resort? Johnny Miller for one. He was part of a group that recently bought Silverado Resort in the Napa Valley not far from his home in Northern California. Miller oversaw a renovation of the Robert Trent Jones Jr.-designed North and South courses, which feature dozens of water crossings, elevation changes, and historic oak trees. Miller added new championship and forward tees, and redid all the bunkers, filling them with Augusta-white sand. He also added more movement to the holes, giving golfers more challenging angles on their drives and approach shots. "Suite" summertime deals start at $199 and include a $50 resort credit, as well as two wine-tasting passes. Click here for more information

Close to the top of every golfer's bucket list is a trip to Nebraska's Sand Hills, but if you didn't know a friend of a friend who belonged to Sand Hills or Dismal River, you were out of luck. Not anymore. Thanks to the opening of the Prairie Club last May, every golfer can finally make the trek, staying in either the 31-room lodge or in one of the four-bedroom cabins. There are three courses but the one that most typifies the Sand Hills' experience is Tom Lehman's Dunes course, which has 80-yard-wide fairways routed through windswept landforms. The Ultimate Golf Experience includes three days golf (including cart and forecaddie), two nights lodging, breakfast buffet and $30 pro shop credit for $749 double occupancy. Click here for more information

Pound-for-pound, Michigan has some of the best golf in the country, and one of the best places to play in the state, Grand Traverse Resort & Spa near Traverse City, just got better with the opening of a Golf Academy headed by 2008 PGA Professional National Champion and six-time Michigan Open Champion Scott Hebert. The new facility features the latest in teaching technology to analyze golf swings. It also has three heated indoor-outdoor hitting bays equipped for video and computer analysis, so regardless of the weather, the Golf Academy school will be in session from April-September. The cherry on top of the cake: the resort is offering a Cherry Festival special over the Fourth of July for $129 a night. Click here for more information

Long Weekend: WaterColor Inn & Resort

You don't necessarily associate luxury destinations with the Florida Panhandle, but this boutique resort near Destin is as good as any desirable retreat in South Florida. Located right on one of the Gulf's duney, baking soda-like beaches, WaterColor has a wonderfully casual beach house feel and is Northwest Florida's only Four Diamond AAA hotel. Besides some noteworthy golf and a first-rate spa, there are plenty of water activities, both on the emerald green waters of the Gulf and the lake that separates the 500-acre property from Grayton Beach State Park.

WHERE TO PLAY

Camp Creek Golf Club: Just a couple miles east down Scenic Highway 30-A, this Tom Fazio design is one of the top 10 public courses in the state. Wetlands and water are often in play, making it one of the more challenging, too, with a Slope/Course Rating of 152/76 from the tips. Massive, undulating green complexes; larges waste areas; and giant pines also distinguish the layout. Click here for more information

Origins Golf Club: This Davis Love III design gets its name from the way the game began in Scotland where 6-to-12-hole courses were commonplace. Through the use of alternate tee boxes and auxiliary greens, golfers can play the walkable, 1,800-yard layout as a six-hole regulation course, nine-hole executive, or 10-hole par 3. It's a great place to take the kids or novice players. Click here for more information

Shark's Tooth Golf Club: Greg Norman used Florida's largest coastal dune lake, Lake Powell, to great effect at this private course open to guests of WaterColor. Both nines have holes that play along the water offering a beautiful but stern test, which is why this wooded site is often used in Local Qualifying for the U.S. Open. Click here for more information

WHERE TO STAY

WaterColor Inn: The 60 rooms are all very spacious and have a seaside chic vibe and color scheme. The beachfront dune view rooms on the first floor feature an outdoor cabana shower, while the upper rooms have wonderful ocean views -- even in the walk-in showers, which have windows that look out onto the Gulf. Click here for more information

WaterColor rental: The upscale residential community of WaterColor is so quaint and perfect it looks like a Hollywood back lot, which it actually was when The Truman Show starring Jim Carrey was shot there. The neotraditional design features grid streets, front porches, alleyways, and zero lot lines to promote pedestrian movement. Airy homes, cottages and townhomes are available for rent in eight different neighborhoods. Click here for more information

WaterSound rental: This 256-acre beach-home community is five miles east of WaterColor and offers a more relaxed environment right next to Deer Lake State Park. Three different types of condos are available for rent, the Crossings with great beach views on the east side, the dune-fronting Compass Point on the west end near the Beach Club and the GateHouse close to the many attractions along Scenic Highway 30-A. Click here for more information

WHERE TO EAT

Bud & Alley's: The area's longest established restaurant named after the founders' dog and cat, this waterfront restaurant and rooftop bar right next door is a local institution and revered gathering spot. The food, like the seared diver scallops with creamy grits, is as good as the sunsets, when a cast iron bell from 1888 is wrung to honor the day's end. Click here for more information

Fish Out of Water: Overlooking the Gulf, this casually chic restaurant at the resort features the freshest local fish and meats prepared in an innovative and artful ways. For large parties, there's a private room lined with the bottles from the wine collection, while the new Sunset Deck is a great place to start with an appetizer and drink. Click here for more information

Great Southern Café: One of Florida's best chefs, Jim Shirley, draws on his grandmother's Southern cooking and his life as a Navy brat who lived all over the world to combine food and flavors unlike anywhere else. His signature dish is Grits a Ya Ya, smoked Gouda cheese grits smothered with a sauce of fresh cream, sautéed Gulf shrimp, spinach, Portobello mushrooms, applewood-smoked bacon, garli, and shallots. Click here for more information