Madison Green Country Club (Royal Palm Beach, FL)

I’m always keen to see courses by architects whose work I haven’t played. Madison Green was designed by John Sanford in 2001. It received an Honorable Mention by Golf Digest for Best New Course that year. 

I was reading an interview with John Sanford and the topic was how far the ball goes and the yardage of golf courses. He replied that he wanted to shorten courses by adding more forward tees. He also stated that although the professionals were hitting it further, the average player wasn’t. He believes in reducing the amount of maintained playing areas which helps lessen golf’s footprint on the environment. 

Madison Green is the prototype image one thinks when conjuring up the term Florida golf. It’s shoehorned into a residential community with homes and roads that are in play on several shots.  There’s a lot of local knowledge and hidden water hazards to be negotiated, fairways that need specific yardages to find the landing area safely, and awkward angles and/or lines that take multiple plays to figure out. In my group, this was the least favorite course from the five we played. 

(The 332/318 yard par four twelfth is a good birdie opportunity. Players lay up to the water and hit a short iron in. There’s fairway to the right to fit a driver for those who want to hit as close as possible.) 

I knew it would be a long day when my two single digit friends expressed a desire to play the white tees. Looking at the scorecard, Madison Green boasts the highest course and slope rating in the county. With water in play on seventeen holes, there’s no let up throughout the round. 

(The 402/371 yard par four seventeenth is the beginning of a good one-two punch finish. With the green in full view, the line of charm drags your eye away from the fairway...

...the approach is all carry to a two tiered green. The bunker on the right squeezes the landing area for those who hit a poor tee shot.) 

The best holes at Madison Green are the par fours. The ones I found most compelling are 7,9,17,&18. The par threes are nice but they don’t really stand out. The sixteenth was the best one with a kidney shaped green tucked behind a bunker with fairway all along the right for players to bail out. The par fives were the holes that I disliked the most. Easy drives followed by awkward second shots that demanded very precise (local knowledge) layups to avoid water. I felt Sanford’s use of mounding hid many of the areas I was hitting towards. In fact, I didn’t care for much of his mounding period. They hid the fairway off several tee boxes and hitting them resulted, or possibly could, in bad kicks or breaks. 

(The 427/356 yard par four eighteenth is a very fine ending hole. The palm tree and waste area capture your eye since a draw is the preferred shape off the tee...
...the approach is then across another water hazard to a banana shaped green backed by two sand traps. Anything short will end up wet. A par is a good score.) 

Madison Green is a popular course and has a full membership. (Judging by the cars in the lot, it’s a rich membership too) Being statistically the hardest course in the county I’m sure is a big draw. One of Sanford’s philosophy is to bring a lot of texture to the design and Madison has that. I love all the palm trees. It definitely has a Florida feel. I give it a 4 (above average)(worth driving 30-45 minutes to play). 

(I’ve never seen a water range before. You hit balls into the lake and a frogman picks them out in the morning. It’s a pretty cool amenity.)