One of the biggest impacts of Covid on the golf world was the proliferation of new public golf clubs, which are still sprouting up like spring flowers due to increased demand for the sport. But there is also a growing list of new private facilities for individuals and families who don’t want to sit on the waitlists of existing clubs. This trend is particularly noticeable in Hobe Sound, Florida, where eight clubs are either in construction or have recently been completed. In many instances, these are pure sporting clubs, offering golf and, of course, pickleball and tennis, but not, say, swimming pools.
Limited upscale lodging has also become common as these clubs are enticing members from around the country, rather than just locals, drawing high net-worth individuals who want to be part of a club that’s steeped in a premium golf experience created by well-known golf architects.
Beyond Florida, we’re also seeing new members-only courses in Texas, South Carolina, and even a new golf hot spot emerging near Omaha, Nebraska. Northern Michigan is also witnessing the renaissance of High Pointe, a remote private facility that went down during the Great Recession but is now coming back, its course larger and more intricate than before.
Here, in no particular order, are 12 of our favorites.
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Apogee Club, Palm Beach Gardens, Florida
Image Credit: Apogee Club Spearheaded and envisioned by Michael Pascucci and Dolphins owner, Stephen Ross, Apogee Club, like Panther National (listed below), is part of Martin County, Florida’s current golf-building frenzy. Unlike Panther National, Apogee is focused on being a sporting club without residential development. A key component of its1,200 acres will be three 18-hole golf courses. The first of those courses, the West Course, designed by Gil Hanse and Jim Wagner, opened this month. Hanse and Wagner comprise one of the hottest—and busiest—duos in golf course design, including a new course at the Park at West Palm, a public facility just down the road. Apogee’s relatively flat ground allowed the designers to move more earth than they normally do, which gave them, in a sense, more creative license. One example is the 14th hole, which features a green resembling Thor’s hammer, with three separate depressions in opposite ends of the hammer and the handle.
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Lost Rail, Omaha, Nebraska
Image Credit: Landscape Unlimited Just miles from downtown Omaha, Lost Rail is testament to Nebraska’s climbing golf relevance. The state has seen other world-class courses like the Landmand emerge recently. Designed by Scott Hoffman, Lost Rail is pure golf across 7,200 yards (par 71) with 30-second walks from green to tee. There are neither homes nor roads across its 155 acres, and the small, classic clubhouse is more reminiscent of a 1920’s home rather than a palatial clubhouse. An abandoned, 100-year-old Burlington Northern railroad line that once connected Omaha to Sioux City, Iowa, is incorporated on several holes of the routing. Hoffman retained much of the native vegetation to lend itself to environmental sustainability. “From an aesthetic standpoint, Lost Rail’s feel constantly changes, making the course very memorable and worth playing many times,” said Jim Flynn, president of the course developer Landscapes Unlimited. “There are a lot of elevation changes and dramatic topography, but nothing fake or fabricated out there.”
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Crossroads at Palmetto Bluff, South Carolina
Image Credit: Crossroads The dynamic golf architect duo Tad King and Rob Collins took land as flat as a pancake at the toney Palmetto Bluff to create Crossroads, a rollicking course full of contour and slope on a 54-acre site. Set to open early next year, the marvelous, reversible 9-hole course will be available to Palmetto Bluff Golf Club members, with usage available to other Palmetto Bluff Club members on a space-available basis. The design team moved a lot of earth to create faux dunes that border the fairways. They give dramatic vistas the community’s inland waterway, which allows golfers to bring their own electric Duffy boats to the course. As with most of King-Collins’ designs, the greens provide both a challenge and whimsy, testing the golfer’s game via a near-endless variety of contours, with treacherous bunkers. Expect fun even as you make double-bogey.
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Brambles Golf Club, Lake County, California
Image Credit: Brambles Golf Club Celebrated designers Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw have built their first design in California, 14 miles north of Napa Valley. With 190 members to date, Brambles is an 18-hole walking course with a modest clubhouse dubbed “The Milking Parlor” (designed as a replica to a nearby early 20th century Danish barn with the same name). An FAA licensed runway sits in the middle of the property, allowing members and guests to fly in, while viewing the sheep that graze its grounds. Brambles is a links-style throwback borrowing concepts from the Old Course in St. Andrews, Scotland. It uses warm-season, low-maintenance zoysia grass, which allows for firm and fast conditions. This is a private, no-frills course that leads with the land and stunning vistas of the mountains surrounding it.
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Shell Bay, Florida
Image Credit: Shell Bay Few cities have seen an influx of affluence since 2020 like Miami. Shell Bay and its $1 million initiation fee might just be a testament to that. The 150-acre waterfront enclave includes the Residences at Shell Bay, complete with a collection of 108 bespoke condominiums and penthouses; a 60-suite boutique resort managed by Auberge Resorts Collection; a racquet center; a 48-slip private yacht club; a wellness center featuring an indoor/outdoor spa; and fine dining restaurants. It also features a Greg Norman-designed course, which is just over 7,200 yards, but has a whopping slope rating of 148 (the max is 155) and player rating of 76.1, meaning that while everything about Shell Bay is opulent and posh, the course is designed to give players a beating. The designers have also built the Bays, a state-of-the-art golf practice facility, as well as a par-3 course.
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Wicker Pointe, The Heritage, Lake Martin, Alabama
Image Credit: Wicker Pointe Alabama’s grand Lake Martin is the setting for this Coore and Crenshaw design that anchors the Heritage, a luxury residential development in Russel Lands. It will include a clubhouse and adjacent pro shop, a practice facility, a putting course, and golf cottages that will be available for members’ guests. The course will give players who can work the ball both ways a big advantage, according to Matthew Sheppard, director of golf. The course moves players through distinct settings, including “pine plantations, creek sides, and lake front.” Lastly, a 42,000-square-foot putting course, The Foothills, is a great way to finish off the day with a cocktail in hand.
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Old Barnwell, Aiken, South Carolina
Image Credit: Old Barnwell Golf as a mechanism for change is the operating ethos at Old Barnwell in Aiken, S.C. Founder Nicholas Schreiber’s aims for his club are twofold: create an outstanding, world-class golf course but also include “programs that empower, invite, and celebrate people and communities historically underrepresented in the game of golf.” It’s no secret that golf has long been a game for the elite and the effete, but Schreiber wants to use those legacies to build new, inclusive membership lists. He has established partnerships with both the Annika Foundation and local HBCUs to help give aspiring golfers and students a chance to form connections in a game long known for networking and business dealings. Set on 575 acres of rolling sand, Old Barnwell isn’t just an instrument of change, it’s an outstanding—and impressive debut—course from Brian Schneider and Blake Conant. Its contoured greens are guarded by bunkers that appear less like hazards and more like half-pipes filled in with sand and grassed walls. The course is as thrilling as riding a skateboard—though no helmet or kneepads are necessary.
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Quixote Club, Sumter, South Carolina
Image Credit: Quixote Club Ninety minutes from Charleston, in Sumter, S.C., the Quixote Club features a 6,800-yard course that occupies 169 acres and “tests player talents with strategically placed bunkers and landing areas, intending for each approach shot to be calculated,” according to the club. Its membership is just over 300, with 60 percent of those being local. What makes Quixote stand out is its philanthropic mission: A portion of its proceeds go each year to help support the Liberty STEAM Charter School. The course plays to a Par of 70, testing players with complex green surfaces that require thoughtful approaches, along with fast, firm playing conditions to test the short game.
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Panther National, Palm Beach Gardens, Florida
Image Credit: Panther National Panther National is a private community, featuring 218 modern estate homesites across a 400-acre complex, bordered by a 2,400-acre conservation area. While Max Strang-designed homes are part of the community’s appeal, the heart of the development is an 18-hole championship course co-designed by Jack Nicklaus and current PGA Tour star Justin Thomas. Those championship bona fides are found a course that stretches over 8,000 yards, with water hazards lurking on many holes and deep bunkers guarding its greens. For less accomplished players Nicklaus and Thomas incorporated multiple sets of tees to ensure playability for all levels.
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Loraloma, Lake Travis, Texas
Image Credit: Areté Collective From Areté Collective, Loraloma is a brand-new, private-residential experience along Austin’s Lake Travis. Situated at the summit of the Thomas Ranch master-planned development, Loraloma will boast a refined collection of homes and a wealth of amenities, including an 18-hole golf course from David McLay-Kidd, an immersive wellness facility, and access to a forthcoming five-star boutique hotel. McLay-Kidd is known for his designs at Bandon Dunes and the exclusive Nanea on the Big Island of Hawaii. The 18-hole, par-72 championship golf course is slated to play 7,060 yards from the back tees, covering 120 acres and fitting seamlessly into the community. Nearly half of the holes play along the cliffside of the Pedernales River, with others on peaks that provide unobstructed vantage points overlooking Hill Country. “Our goal is to open up this compelling landscape to golfers for a world-class experience and tread very lightly to protect this land so that it can be enjoyed and embraced for generations,” said McLay-Kidd.
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Red Feather, Lubbock, Texas
Image Credit: Red Feather This rectangular parcel of land outside of Lubbock, Texas, required digging out one-and-a-half million cubic yards of dirt to create an 80-foot-deep canyon, which then allowed King-Collins, the duo behind The Crossroads at Palmetto Bluff (above), Landmand and Sweetens Cove, to build barrancas across the property to collect water on the arid site. In addition to this, the course offers 360-degree views of the property, so golfers are able to look across to nearly every hole. King-Collins has made a name for itself with wild and inventive architecture, featuring bold landforms and rollicking green complexes that resemble ocean waves more than contoured putting surfaces. The duo is constantly pushing convention and Red Feather is a testament to their ability to eschew norms with both the shortest par 3 (99 yards) and longest par 5 (721 yards) in Texas.
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High Pointe Golf Club, Traverse City, Michigan
Image Credit: High Pointe Golf Club When Tom Doak was just 26 years old, he built his first golf course on sandy, rolling terrain just outside Traverse City, Michigan. That course, High Pointe, would go on to become the proof of concept for Doak’s minimalist style as well as the precursor to courses that include Pacific Dunes at Bandon Dunes Golf Resort and Cape Kidnappers in New Zealand. All of these courses let the land shine. The original High Pointe was a casualty of the Great Recession, but will be born again next summer when it returns with the same name. With newly acquired land, a new clubhouse and lodging in the works, the revitalized High Pointe will once again showcase Doak’s ability to shape courses along the ground and create a unique routing (the sequence of holes) that takes advantage of the land’s rolling topography. The course’s playing corridors are expansive but feel intimate due to the towering Northwoods that border the course.
