History
Central Florida’s tourism boom of the late 1980s and early 1990s brought golfers by the planeload to Orlando and its surrounding towns, and Kissimmee positioned itself to capture a share of that traffic with a course built for the destination player. Falcon’s Fire opened in 1993 as a daily-fee facility aimed squarely at the visiting golfer market that had come to define the region, offering a championship-caliber test without the gates of private membership.
Rees Jones took on the design work, arriving with a résumé already built on his reputation as a U.S. Open doctor — the architect trusted by the USGA to sharpen championship venues for major competition. That pedigree brought a certain rigor to Falcon’s Fire, evident in the course’s stretch to just over 7,000 yards from the championship tees and a slope rating of 135, numbers that reflect Jones’s instinct for testing accomplished players even on a relatively flat piece of Osceola County ground. For a market flooded with resort-style layouts built to please rather than challenge, Jones’s involvement gave Falcon’s Fire a different kind of credibility.
In the decades since its opening, the course has kept pace with changing agronomic standards, converting its greens to ultradwarf Bermuda grass to hold up against Florida’s heat and heavy year-round play. It remains a public course today, still drawing on the same visitor traffic that justified its construction three decades ago, its Rees Jones pedigree continuing to set it apart within Kissimmee’s crowded golf landscape.
Playing notes
At 7,006 yards from the tips with a 135 slope, Falcon's Fire plays tougher than its Kissimmee neighbors, and most of that difficulty comes down to bunkering and green speed rather than tight tree-lined corridors. The ultradwarf Bermuda greens run fast and firm, so club selection into the pin matters more than shot shape off the tee — misjudge your approach and you'll watch it release well past where it landed. Bermuda fairways give a true, predictable bounce, which helps with the wind that tends to pick up in the afternoon and can turn mid-length par 4s into a guessing game for club selection. This is a cart-path course, and given the yardage and Florida heat, walking isn't realistic for most players — budget for the cart and bring plenty of water. Bunkers show up in landing zones off several tees, so bombing driver without checking the layout on the scorecard first can put you in the sand more often than you'd like; players who take an extra minute to plan tee shots by hole will score better than those who just grip it and rip it.
Tee boxes
| Tees | Yardage | Par | Slope | Rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Championship | 7,006 | 72 | 135 | 73.2 |