Issue link: https://www.balharbourdigital.com/i/1536166
C O U R T E S Y O F PA N T H E R N AT I O N A L Panther National in Palm Beach Gardens he baggage carousel rumbles to life. Soon a caravan of golf travel bags begins to snake its way slowly around a portion of Palm Beach International Airport's arrivals terminal. This long queue of golf equipment, recently unloaded from planes that only a few hours earlier had taken off from runways in Boston, New York, and other Northeast hubs, tells one half of the story. The 10 lanes of bustling traffic on I-95 traveling north and south of West Palm Beach tell the other half. For decades, this stretch of South Florida, from Hobe Sound in the north to West Palm in the south, has been an epicenter for golf in the Sunshine State. Dozens of PGA Tour professionals have called the region home, and longstanding private golf clubs—with names such as Loblolly, McArthur, Medalist, and Seminole—have attracted the most affluent and discerning golfers. Consequently, the waiting lists to become a member at any of those clubs have, for years, stretched as long as their heralded fairways. The pandemic provided golf with an unexpected boost. Seemingly overnight, the game was suddenly popular with an entirely new audience. In South Florida, private clubs' wait lists grew even longer, and those that did have openings quickly filled their membership rosters to capacity. T the new mecca of golf A bold new class of private golf clubs has emerged in South Florida, bringing a lot of buzz, exceptional courses, and a fresh take on membership experiences. BY SHAUN TOLSON Subsequently, a fresh wave of developers swooped in to establish new clubs and build noteworthy courses—all of which have injected the region with a sense of excitement. Although it's happened fairly quickly, this new golf development boom is more than just an example of supply satisfying demand. It's the creation of a brand-new tier of clubs that blend top-shelf golf with relaxed lifestyles and minimal restrictions. "That's what happens when you have the ability to control how many people you're bringing in, control the rules—because we're starting from scratch—and also control the fact that we have resources and amenities that none of those other clubs could likely have all in the same place," says Cameron S. Wiebe, chief operating officer of Apogee, a sprawling development in Hobe Sound that features three championship-caliber golf courses, among other amenities. A survey of the roster of new clubs being built—Apogee and Atlantic Fields in Hobe Sound, Panther National in Palm Beach sports travel Gardens, and Dutchman's Pipe in West Palm Beach—reveals a distinct suite of amenities and services that are likely to appeal to various segments of the golfing demographic. What they all share in common, however, is exceptional courses routed across dynamic topography. These are not the flat, soft layouts that most envision when they think of golf in South Florida. MOVERS AND SHAKERS Thought-provoking. Natural in scale and rhythm. Intentionally understated. That's how designer Gil Hanse describes the West Course at Apogee, which he created with his associate, Jim Wagner. Theirs is a low-profile routing, one that carves its way through corridors of trees. It meanders across much of Apogee's 500 acres on the west side of Kanner Highway (the club boasts more than 1,200 acres in total) and is a walking golfer's paradise. The South Course, by contrast, is boldly contoured, built up and shaped using fill that was extracted from the many lakes dug across the BALHAR B O U RSH O P S .CO M