There's a footbridge across the lake on Blue #7, which you then go back across to get to #8 tee. It's the longest hike on the course by far, but it's worth every step. [They get in to mow the green from the back side, from Red #17 tees.]
The walk from Blue 12 to 13 goes around the back of Red 14 tee. That walk is about as long as the one from 11 to 12 at Pacific Dunes, but you get a peek at one of the most dramatic views on the Red course for your trouble. Crossovers like that are never easy to sort out, but we think it's okay. People might be waiting to try and drive #13 Blue green, anyway, so hopefully the walk spaces them out a bit.
The lakes on the site are not like normal golf course ponds; they are 3-10 times the scale of what you normally see, and they've been naturalized over the years. Not using them a bit would be like going to Bandon Dunes and not playing along the ocean ... but, we had eight players for most of Friday and there were no balls hit into the water at all. Plus, there is a lot of elevation change going on, so the lakes never feel the same. Just on the Blue course:
At #3, the tee is 15-20 feet above the lake, and the green is ten feet up.
At #7, the tee is 60-70 feet above the lake, and the green is backed by a dune that's 90 feet high.
At #13, the green is 20-25 feet above the lake.
At #14, the tee is 10-12 feet above the lake.
Mac: the little hole you noticed is a nineteenth hole, which we will now label the "Thirty-seventh". It will be lighted for night play so people can go out from the clubhouse and have a closest-to-the-pin contest after dinner. The huge putting green that Bill just finished building will probably be another lively evening hang-out.
Keith O'Halloran: That's a pretty outlandish statement. In what way could we possibly change the future of golf? I think we have a good chance of changing the golf landscape in Florida, and maybe the southeast, but I don't know how far I'd go past that. Rio, though, would be a different story.