Arnold Palmer & the New Shingle Creek
By Scott Kauffman
Below is an excerpt from Scott Kauffman’s article as it appeared in the 2016 issue of Rosen Reveal.
Rosen Shingle Creek® hotel revels in the fact it sits alongside historic Shingle Creek, the headwaters of the Florida Everglades. As it turns out, the AAA Four Diamond destination also happens to be at the headwaters of some world-class golf.
Nestled next to its namesake tributary, top-rated Shingle Creek Golf Club is one of the main reasons the luxury hotel is a true oasis in the heart of Orlando’s congested tourist and convention-center corridor. This year, there’s even more reason to revel in Rosen Shingle Creek® with a redesigned golf course by Arnold Palmer Design Company.
For decades, Palmer and noted hotelier Harris Rosen reshaped their respective industries. Along the way, the two Orlando residents have also literally changed the Central Florida landscape.
Palmer, of course, put Orlando on the map with his personal Bay Hill Club & Lodge, which annually hosts the prestigious PGA Tour Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by MasterCard and benefits the Arnold Palmer Medical Center. Meanwhile, Rosen created one of the biggest and most respected independent hotel networks in the world’s most visited city and helped establish the University of Central Florida’s renowned Rosen College of Hospitality Management after making a donation of $10 million and 20 acres of land at the foot of Rosen Shingle Creek®.
Fittingly, Rosen and Palmer are now associated with the new Shingle Creek Golf Course, further accentuating an already-strong connection between the Orlando icons and their respective signature properties. For starters, the golf and hospitality icons almost share the same birthday (Rosen was born on Sept. 9; Palmer, 10 years his senior, who was born on Sept. 10).
Indeed, there are a number of other parallels between Palmer and Rosen’s new championship course, situated just a few miles from Palmer’s part-time home at Bay Hill.
