Check out the photos of Panther National in South Florida.
Jack Nicklaus and Justin Thomas have teamed up to design Panther National, a new private club in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, that officially opens Friday with a star-studded exhibition match.
Rickie Fowler, Xander Schauffele, Morgan Hoffmann, Erik van Rooyen and Lexi Thompson will tee it up alongside Thomas for the course opening.
The course will offer up double fairways, deep bunkers and expansive sandy waste areas amid what the club calls an unusual amount of elevation changes for a South Florida course. The club also will feature state-of-the-art training facilities, a 9-hole, par-3 practice course and a huge putting course named The Cub. It’s all attached to a residential offering of 218 high-end, custom estates on 400 acres surrounded by Panther National Wildlife Refuge.
“From the start, the vision was clear – to create a golf experience unlike any other found in South Florida,” Nicklaus said in a media release announcing the opening. “Every opportunity to design a golf course brings challenges, but in the case of Panther National, uniqueness triumphs. You won’t find any golf course remotely close to it in South Florida.”
Check out a selection of images of the course and amenities below.
With 26 courses already bearing his name, Price hopes Soleta will expand his design business and his solo portfolio.
MYAKKA CITY, Fla. – Nick Price’s enthusiasm is evident as we trundle across a pasture in a four-wheeled off-roader, skimming shallow puddles and curving around the sandy Florida scrub.
The three-time major championship winner keeps pointing out features about the land. See that stand of trees over there? That will be a tee box. See that hump? That’s a green. See that fence line? That will be a par 4. Let me show you the river, if you have time.
For almost an hour, Price shows off what will become Soleta Golf Club. The Zimbabwean couldn’t be more thrilled to be the lead architect. As I pepper him with questions, he chats amicably about his plans to transform all the former farmland around us into a top-tier private golf course, typically in great detail.
“You’ll have to come back to see how this works out,” said Price, 66, a former World No. 1 who retired from steady competitive golf eight years ago. “You’re going to love it. Well, I’m going to love it, I know that.”
Before ground has even been broken, Price has made dozens of site visits, driving across the state’s peninsula from his Hobe Sound home in southeast Florida to what will be the club and residential community about a 40-minute drive east of Sarasota and 75 minutes southeast of Tampa. He plans to make the trip dozens of more times to keep an eye on every detail as the course is built, with a planned opening in late 2024.
Since Soleta – named for the indigenous Native American word meaning sandhill cranes, according to the club – was announced in July, Price has set about turning this fairly flat piece of Florida upland into the 27th golf course with his name attached, be it as a consultant or lead designer. And he’s determined to be hands-on.
“I’ve got to stand in this space while it’s being done, to make sure everything looks right,” said Price, who won two PGA Championships (1992, 1994), one British Open (1994) and 18 PGA Tour titles in all among his 48 worldwide wins. “I have a much better vision for distances and feel for the property when I’m actually here. That’s why I enjoy doing the dirt work. I’ll probably come out once every two weeks, for a couple days each time. I need to see it.”
Under development by a private group led by David Turner and Charles Duff, Soleta will include a planned 93 high-end residences and a village center. But those will be kept at the north end of the property separate from the golf, leaving Price more than a mile-long run toward the Myakka River. The club also will include a 30-acre practice facility designed by instructor David Leadbetter.
“From the very start, these guys have allowed us to put the emphasis on the golf,” Price said of the developers. “It’s not about the homes, not about anything else. The emphasis will be on the golf, and I love that.”
This is typical inland Florida, with one-light towns clustered around crossroads and more cattle than people. It’s a far cry from the traffic of Interstate 75 and the Tampa-St. Petersburg area. Drive these dozens of miles east of the Gulf of Mexico, and instead of golfers you likely will find farm workers lined up for lunch at gas stations. There are plenty of golf communities closer to Sarasota, but Soleta is well east of those crowds.
As with most of its neighboring parcels, the land for Soleta was farmed and family-owned for decades. This land is relatively flat with a few wet stretches, challenging Price to create what he desires most in a golf course: firm and fast conditions that incorporate the ground game.
“All the great courses I have played over the years allow you to run the ball in, at least on certain holes,” said Price, known as one of the top ball-strikers of his generation. “You use the bounce and you use the slope, and that’s what we’re trying to do here.”
Developer Charles Duff, left, and Nick Price tour the site for Soleta Golf Club in Myakka City, Florida. (Courtesy of Soleta Golf Club)
The plans are to move as much or more than 1 million cubic yards of dirt, creating a handful of small lakes, the digging of which will provide sand to lift the golf holes. Price plans to generate elevation changes where currently there are none, with wide expanses of sandy native areas and natural-looking landscaping between holes instead of what a golfer typically finds in Florida, which is great expanses of green turf among pine trees. Taming the water flow will be key.
“To me, the brilliance of any architect is how well they get rid of the water, especially in Florida,” Price said. “Here, we have so much water – the less time it spends underneath in the subsoil, the better. We’ll move the water away from the golf course to get those firm conditions.”
The planned layout features two loops playing southward toward the Myakka River, which this far inland is more like a gentle stream. The southern point of the club is a gorgeous Florida scene, the river slowly coursing through cypresses and oaks. The club plans to leave this area relatively untouched to protect the native wetlands environment. Price has altered the planned layout several times, tweaking his routing to take advantage of what the land offers as it approaches the river.
“We’ve got the bones of this plan looking really good now,” he said. “The angles will be everything.”
A map of the plans for the new Soleta Golf Club in Myakka City, Florida (Courtesy of Soleta Golf Club)
Price imagines a course built high enough upon the land to provide those firm bounces he craves, with a mixture of long and short holes that will make most players hit every club in their bags. The conversation keeps returning to firm and fast conditions, with Price’s love of old-school links golf in the United Kingdom evident.
“It’s like on links courses, where you have one little 5-yard bunker but it has a catchment area of maybe 40 yards where everything rolls in,” he said in describing ideal playing conditions. “You have to think about how you want to play that. You can’t ignore that one little bunker. That’s what we want to do here.”
Price goes on to name several architects – Gil Hanse, the team of Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw, Tom Doak, even Tom Fazio in some cases – who have incorporated large areas of exposed sand into firm and bouncy American courses. He’s taking a similar tact at Soleta.
“It’s not just about how beautiful the flowers are,” he said. “You want a contrast of nature. That’s what I love. You never see anything with a straight line in nature, and very infrequently do you see anything dead flat in nature. I hate straight lines on a golf course, and I hate dead flat.”
Price is accustomed to building in Florida, with his biggest hit the original layout at McArthur Golf Club in Hobe Sound. Price partnered with Fazio to construct what is now the ninth-ranked private course in Florida and a top-100 modern course in the U.S., according to Golfweek’s Best rankings. He also built Quail Valley in Vero Beach alongside Tommy Fazio, Tom Fazio’s nephew. His other design credits stretch from Mexico to Myrtle Beach, from South Africa to Hong Kong.
Even with 26 courses already bearing his name, Price hopes to use Soleta as a springboard to expand his eponymous design business and his solo portfolio.
“I’m very focused on this project (at Soleta), he said. “I really always have protected my integrity with what I am putting my name on, and that’s what I want here, something that good.
“Beyond that, you know, I’m looking forward to the next 10 or 12 years to really being able to do some nice properties and do some nice things I can leave behind. More McArthurs and more Quail Valleys. Let’s see how far we can take this.”
Lester George plans a golf course for Contentment Golf Club in North Carolina with a nod to famous template holes.
Golf course development company Landscapes Unlimited has joined with a third-generation property owner to break ground this week on the private Contentment Golf Club in Traphill, North Carolina.
Situated in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, Contentment will feature a course layout by Lester George. A media release announcing the groundbreaking said the course will pay tribute to famous template holes established by C.B. Macdonald and Seth Raynor.
The club will span more than 800 acres and is located about an hour’s drive west of Winston-Salem and 90 minutes north of Charlotte.
Owner Curt Sidden spent time on the property with his late grandfather and plans to open the club Sept. 25, 2025, which will be the 100th anniversary of his grandparents’ wedding.
The planed routing for the new Contentment Golf Club in North Carolina (Courtesy of Contentment GC)
“Contentment is a tribute to my grandparents with whom I spent time here as a boy,” Sidden said in the media release. “My family showed me the benefits of a quiet, uncomplaining and satisfied mind, and we hope Contentment is a true, tranquil haven for the body, mind and soul.”
Plans include cottages and lodging for members, but the property will otherwise be void of homes. There will be a comprehensive practice facility, outdoor gathering spaces, a lake, trails and reflection sanctuaries.
“The property on which Contentment sits is one of most relaxing, rejuvenating and overall special topographies in our company’s history,” Jack Morgan, senior vice rresident of Landscapes Unlimited’s project development group, said in the media release.
New bunkers and tees to be added to one of the top private clubs in Connecticut.
Fazio Design and course superintendent Stephen Hicks have started a bunker renovation to Bull’s Bridge Golf Club in South Kent, Connecticut. The project to one of the top private clubs in the state will include the expansion of several fairways and approach areas and the addition of new tees on select holes.
Bull’s Bridge ties for No. 5 on Golfweek’s Best 2023 list of private clubs in Connecticut, and it also ranks No. 181 on Golfweek’s Best list of all modern courses built since 1960 in the United States. Designed by Tom Fazio, Bull’s Bridge opened in 2004.
New bunkers will be added to eight holes, and other bunkers will be repositioned. With McDonald and Sons as the construction contractor, new back tees will be added to Nos. 2, 9 and 18. Forward tees will be built on Nos. 3, 6, 10 and 17. Grow-in and full completion of the golf course project is expected in November.
No. 16 at Bull’s Bridge in South Kent, Connecticut, during renovation (Courtesy of Bull’s Bridge Golf Club)
A clubhouse expansion plan also has been approved by the local zoning commission, with Furno Architects on board for that job. The existing clubhouse has been redesigned, and a new golf house with locker rooms and a golf shop will be added and connected by a breezeway. The project began in August.
“This is an exciting time at Bull’s Bridge, with these significant upgrades being made to enhance overall member enjoyment of our facilities,” general manager Brian Freeswick said in a media release announcing the plans.
Former PGA Tour star Paul Azinger and the architecture firm of Fry/Straka Global Golf Course Design have partnered to build 18 main holes and more for the new riverside Miakka Golf Club in Myakka City, Florida.
The private club will be built on more than 1,100 acres along the Myakka River about 30 miles southeast of Sarasota/Bradenton International Airport, not far from the Gulf of Mexico between Tampa and Naples. The club shares ownership and is adjacent to the TerraNova Equestrian Center and The Estates at TerraNova, with development led by Florida entrepreneur Steve Herrig.
The club will include a full-length 18-hole course, a 12-hole par-3 course, a 7-acre short-game facility, a lighted putting course and a circular practice range that includes a performance center. Along with a clubhouse, the club plans to build cabins for members and guests. Plans are for the short course to open in 2024 with the main course ready for play in 2025.
“This is one of the best natural sites for golf and one of the best teams we’ve ever been affiliated with,” Jason Straka, principal of Fry/Straka Global Golf Course Design, said in a media release announcing the club. “The property has an incredible two miles of frontage along the Myakka River with hundreds of mature oak hammocks. Just the golf club and its facilities are being built on more than 1,100 acres.
“Miakka is going to be pure golf with no encroachments or distractions of any kind. The course will resemble the celebrated courses of the Australian Sandbelt, with wide turf corridors, no rough, and distinctive bunkers and natural-area hazards jutting into the line of play.”
Azinger, a former Ryder Cup captain, grew up in Florida and lives in nearby Bradenton.
“This is my home, and it’s incredibly important to me,” Azinger said in the media release. “Steve (Herrig) and his team are absolutely committed to making Miakka Golf Club one of the very best private clubs in the world. He’s assembled an all-star team and will do whatever it takes to achieve that goal.”
Dana Fry said his design team is going to great lengths to provide superior playing conditions.
“The entire 7,700-yard golf course will be sand-capped with a proprietary blend of sand and Profile soil conditioner,” Fry said in the media release. “Everything but the greens will be sodded. In addition, the entire course will have substantial underdrains to ensure fast and firm playing conditions year-round. Recently, Miakka secured 1,600 acres of adjacent land and will be the first course in Florida with its own sod farm. This is where they’ll grow the Stadium and Lazer Zoysia grass that will be used on the fairways, tees, and green surrounds.”
Golfweek’s Best 2023: The top private golf courses in each state.
Want to find the best private golf courses in each state? You’re in the right spot, and welcome to Golfweek’s Best 2023 list of top private layouts as judged by our international panel of raters.
The hundreds of members of that ratings panel continually evaluate courses and rate them based on 10 criteria on a points basis of 1 through 10. They also file a single, overall rating on each course. Those overall ratings are averaged to produce these rankings.
KEY: (m) modern, built in 1960 or after; (c) classic, built before 1960. For courses with a number preceding the (m) or (c), that is where the course ranks on Golfweek’s Best lists for top 200 modern and classic courses in the U.S.
* indicates new or returning to the rankings
Editor’s note: The Golfweek’s Best 2023 rankings of top 200 Modern and top 200 Classic Courses will be released June 19.
Architect Tom Fazio is returning to Reynolds Lake Oconee in Greensboro, Georgia, with plans to combine nine existing holes with nine new holes and introduce them as a new, 18-hole private golf course.
The existing nine holes that will be used for layout is The Bluff nine that currently is part of the 27-hole The National course. Fazio built all 27 of those holes, which also include the Ridge and Cove nines. The Ridge and Cove nines will continue as The National, which currently ranks No. 10 in Georgia on Golfweek’s Best list of public-access courses in each state. The National also ties for No. 187 on Golfweek’s Best ranking of resort courses in the U.S.
Reynolds Lake Oconee operates as both a resort and a members club. With the addition of the new and yet-to-be-named Fazio course, expected to open in late 2024, Reynolds Lake Oconee will have seven courses. Five of those – Great Waters, The Oconee, The Preserve, The Landing and The National – will be open to resort guests, including those who stay at The Ritz-Carlton Reynolds, Lake Oconee. Two of the property’s courses – Creek Club and the newly combined Fazio 18 – will be private. All the public-access courses at Reynolds Lake Oconee rank highly in Georgia on Golfweek’s Best state-by-state list, with Great Waters by Jack Nicklaus the highest among them.
Fazio built The Bluff nine in 1997 as part of the original National course, and The Cove nine was added in 2000 on the parcel that includes forests, streams, ponds and views of Lake Oconee. Fazio will use adjacent land distinguished by 100 feet of elevation changes, a creek, large boulders and an existing pond for the new nine holes that will be combined with Bluffs.
“My goal is always to create distinctive, one-of-a-kind golf courses,” Fazio said in a media release announcing the new nine. “There’s a lot of terrain variation – lots of ups and downs, ins and outs, twists and turns – which is great for golf. That’s what makes this such a fine natural setting.”
The media release said the new 18 will use the first five holes of the existing Bluff routing, followed by nine new holes including a new ninth green alongside Lake Oconee, then incorporate the final four holes of The Bluff.
“We are fortunate that Tom Fazio again applied his vision to Reynolds Lake Oconee to create nine new holes and integrate them with the world-class golf course he originally designed. It’s an honor for our community,” said Robert Merck, global head of real estate at MetLife Investment Management, investment manager of Reynolds Lake Oconee. “Our members and their guests are certain to be challenged and energized by his latest design.”
Check out the aerial photos of the renovated Cape Club of Palm City in South Florida.
The Cape Club of Palm City, located about 90 minutes north of Fort Lauderdale depending on traffic, was purchased in 2022 by an ownership group led by Massachusetts real estate developer Michael Intoccia, and the now-private facility has been hard at work on the property formerly known as Fox Club Florida.
In a South Florida market where entry fees for private golf clubs regularly climb into six figures, the Cape Club of Palm City is currently offering a comparative bargain with a $25,000 initiation fee. While that’s not loose change in every player’s pocket, it’s a relative steal in recent years for a solid, major-market course where ownership has committed to improved playing conditions and member facilities.
After five months of renovations and grow-in that are still ongoing, golfers who played the daily-fee Fox Club Florida might be hard-pressed to recognize several of the holes. Massive cleanup efforts included removal of overgrown brush and assorted native flora both in the line of play and especially on the perimeter of several holes. Turf was replaced, greens were resurfaced and sometimes recontoured, all the bunkers were overhauled and the range was renovated. Playing adjacent to Interstate 95 at the northern edge of Martin County, the layout now provides an upgraded Florida golf experience through slightly expanded corridors with water in play on almost every hole.
The Cape Club of Palm City’s course, which has been bought and sold several times, originally was designed by Roy Case and opened in 1989. It was redesigned in 2004 by Darren Clarke and Eoghan O’Connell. This most recent work was done in-house.
The new ownership also plans to install cabins along the ninth hole, which played as No. 18 before the nines were flipped in the recent renovation. All facilities including the clubhouse have seen marked improvements.
The Cape Club Collection of private facilities includes two other courses, both in Massachusetts: the Cape Club of Sharon and the Cape Club of Falmouth.
Check out several photos below of the Cape Club taken this week during an outing for Golfweek’s Best course raters.
The new course will feature six par 3s, eight par 4s and four par 5s for a total par of 70.
Windsong Farm Golf Club in Independence, Minnesota, has hired architect John Fought to design a second course at the club just west of Minneapolis.
The original course at Windsong Farm – also designed by Fought and opened in partnership with Tom Lehman, then renovated by Fought in 2015 – ranks No. 6 on Golfweek’s Best list of private courses in Minnesota. It ties for No. 140 on the list of all modern courses built in the U.S. since 1960.
“I generally don’t like to do the same thing with my projects, so this one will be really different from any of my other courses,” Fought said in a media release announcing the new course. “It’s a unique piece of land with lake views and rolling terrain, and we will be doing what it allows us without having to move a lot of dirt. It will be the perfect complement to Windsong Farm Golf Club.”
Plans for the new course to be built at Windsong Farm Golf Club in Minnesota (Courtesy of Windsong Farm)
Plans are for Fought and course-building company Duininck Golf to break ground as soon as the ground thaws out this spring, with an opening planned for summer of 2024. The second course will make Windsong Farm the lone 36-hole private facility in the Minneapolis-St. Paul metro market.
The new course will feature six par 3s, eight par 4s and four par 5s for a total par of 70. Thirteen of the holes will have views of Fox Lake, and the entire course will play shorter than its 7,550-yard predecessor at the club but, Fought said, not necessarily much easier.
“This second course will play tougher than people might think as length is not the only factor in determining difficulty,” Fought said. “Playing strategies will very much come into play here. Plus, the 18th will be a ‘Cape’hole — a long, 483-yard par 4 that plays around the lake.”
The original course at Windsong Farm Golf Club in Minnesota (Courtesy of Windsong Farm)
Fought said he took inspiration for the new course, which will include several famous template holes, from Seth Raynor’s Shoreacres Golf Club near Chicago.
“This will be like creating a course from the early 1900s but with a modern infrastructure,” Fought said. “This is open, rolling land with natural, native areas that are fescue and gives us the opportunity to integrate several old-style holes into the mix. I’m thrilled to be working with the talented teams at Windsong Farm and Duininck Golf on what promises to be an exciting addition to the Minnesota golf scene.”
“This is really exciting for our members because they’ll be able to play two completely different, high-quality golf courses,” Jon Dailing, superintendent at Windsong Farm, said in the media release. “John knows this entire property so well and has done a great job studying where the new course will be built. He’s very creative and there will be a lot of history built into his design.”
Wyoming’s top golf courses offer the opportunity to elevate your golf game.
If you’re looking to elevate your golf game, Wyoming – with its thin air and mountainous terrain – might be just the spot.
Golfweek’s Best offers many lists of course rankings, with that of top public-access courses in each state among the most popular. All the courses on this list allow public access in some fashion, be it standard daily green fees, through a resort or by staying at an affiliated hotel. If there’s a will, there’s a tee time.
(m): Modern course, built in or after 1960 (c): Classic course, built before 1960
Note: If there is a number in the parenthesis with the m or c, that indicates where that course ranks among Golfweek’s Best top 200 modern or classic courses.
