Megalodons are good for marketing.
Filmmakers know this (see: “The Meg” and “The Meg 2”). Golf course operators seem to understand it, too. The newest course in Streamsong Resort in Florida it’s proof.
In almost two years since then David McLay Kidd began turning over on the fourth 18-hole course at Streamsong, golf wonks have been playing a good game of parlor game guessing what the new layout might be called.
A color seemed like a safe bet. Given that the estate’s three existing 18-thinners were Blue, Red and Black, surely the next one would be a Streamsong Yellow, White or Green, right?
Wrong.
None of the above made the cut. Neither Puce, Fuchsia or Magenta. Instead, a predator helped provide the inspiration.
On Tuesday, KemperSports, which owns and operates Streamsong, made it official. McLay Kidd’s design has been christened Bone Valley and will open for previews on November 30.
To understand the choice in the name, it helps to understand your geological history.
Millions of years ago, the area of ​​Central Florida where Streamsong is located was underwater, a raging ocean teeming with all kinds of marine life. High on the aquatic food chain was the megalodon, a shark so large it made the Great White look like a minnow. The amount of fossilized remains gave the region its name: Valley of Bones.
It took a while for McLay Kidd to understand why. When the architect started working on the site, he got a crash course in paleontology. Fossils here. Fossils there. He kept coming at them. Mainly megalodon teeth. The first time he found one, he was shocked. By the fourth or fifth, he told GOLF.com, he was less impressed. “I was like, ah, he’s broken,” he said. A few months later, discovering the saw-sharp remains of an ancient fish seemed no more remarkable than stumbling upon a cactus in a desert.
The name did not come without thought. KemperSports went through the expected chatter — yes, colors were among the contenders — before geology decided the decision.
“The name was a natural fit for the land and a course that was literally millions of years in the making,” said KemperSports CEO Steve Skinner.
There is also a commercial logic to the name. Golf course branding lives and breathes through merchandise, and Bone Valley gives a creative team a lot more to work with than, say, Streamsong Yellow. Megalodon already gets top billing in another way—the lobby of Streamsong’s main lodge features one’s fossilized jaws on visible display. The resort’s logo for the new course also leans toward the prehistoric. It depicts a skeletal, crocodilian creature rendered in sharp, graphic lines that should look good on hats and shirts.
;)
Streamsong Resort
No. Not a megalodon. But it doesn’t matter. The ancient oceans of Central Florida were not a one-predator show. Alongside the megalodons swam giant sea turtles, mermaids (the ancestors of the manatee), and any number of spiny, slithery things that left their bones in the phosphate-rich soil.
