The Roost at Cabot Citrus Farms

The Roost at Cabot Citrus Farms

Brooksville, Florida · Par 36 · ~1,600 yards · Resort

The concept is unusual enough to warrant explanation. The Roost is an 18-hole par-3 course at Cabot Citrus Farms where each hole was designed by a different golf architect. Keith Rhebb, Rob Collins, Riley Johns, and a roster of additional designers each contributed a single hole, creating a course that functions as both a playable round and a survey of contemporary design thinking in miniature.

The result could easily have been incoherent. Eighteen different design voices on eighteen consecutive holes risks producing a disjointed experience, a portfolio showcase rather than a golf course. What prevents this is the shared landscape. The sandy Florida terrain at Cabot Citrus Farms provides a unifying thread, and the designers were working with similar raw material even as they brought different philosophies to their individual holes. The transitions between holes feel natural rather than jarring, and the course reads as a complete experience rather than a collection of isolated efforts.

At roughly 1,600 yards, The Roost plays in under two hours at a comfortable pace. Walking is the only option, which suits both the scale of the course and its social intent. This is a course designed for the late afternoon round, the warm-up before dinner, or the competitive match where the stakes are a drink at the bar rather than a handicap adjustment. It accommodates all skill levels without condescending to any of them. The holes range from straightforward pitches to more demanding shots that require full commitment to a club selection and a swing.

The par-3 format strips golf to its most essential skill: hitting a green from a known distance with a known club. There is no driving strategy, no layup calculus, no fairway to find. Each hole presents a single clear challenge and asks for a single clear response. This simplicity is liberating for some golfers and revealing for others. A round on The Roost will tell you a great deal about the quality of your iron play and your touch around the greens.

The variety across the eighteen holes is the clearest benefit of the multi-designer approach. One hole might feature a deep bunker fronting a shallow green, demanding a high, soft shot. The next might offer a wide opening that invites the ground game. The design philosophies shift from hole to hole, but the cumulative effect is a round that asks the golfer to adjust constantly, cycling through the bag and adapting to a new set of conditions every few minutes. For students of golf architecture, the course functions as a comparative study: eighteen different answers to the question of what a par 3 can be, all laid out in sequence on the same piece of land.

The Roost opened in 2023 alongside Karoo, Cabot Citrus Farms' full-length course designed by Kyle Franz. Access is typically included with a Karoo round or as part of a stay package, making it a complementary experience rather than a separate expense. For visitors to the property, it is an essential addition to the itinerary rather than an optional one. The two courses together create a day of golf that moves from the rigour and strategy of Karoo's full-length test to the creativity and social ease of The Roost's par-3 format, a sequence that leaves the golfer satisfied without feeling exhausted.

The sandy terrain drains quickly, and the course is playable within hours of the afternoon thunderstorms that are common in central Florida during the warmer months. The turf is firm underfoot, consistent with the playing surfaces on Karoo, and the greens accept both the aerial and ground approach. This versatility makes The Roost accessible to golfers of widely varying skill levels playing the same hole from the same tee, which is the practical foundation of its social appeal.

The collaborative design model that produced The Roost reflects a broader trend in modern golf architecture toward shared projects and multi-designer layouts. The approach works here because the individual contributions are strong, the connecting thread of the landscape is consistent, and the overall intent is clear: build a par-3 course that is genuinely fun to play, architecturally interesting to study, and social enough to anchor an afternoon. The Roost achieves all three.