As you approach the course, two sets of nets dominate the skyline. It looks like TopGolf but it’s actually the driving range and a lighted par three course. (How cool is that?!) There’s also an eighteen hole putting course complete with a cabana and a wonderful sitting area. If you’re an after the round soak it in kind of guy, like many of my buddies in the Cuyahoga North Coast Golf Association, then you are in for a treat. It also possesses a great short game area and every station at the driving range has a trackman to help hone in your game. All these things push The Park’s agenda to make golf cool, fun, and family oriented. Date night anyone?
(The lighted par three course is located between the two nets. The holes are modest length but the sand traps and crazy green contours make it a blast to play. Note how there is an avenue to putt the ball all the way to each green. Beginners can enjoy it just as much as serious players. A+ for this addition!)
The Park is built on a sandy, scrubby piece of land. Gil Hanse and Jim Wagner designed it to be a links/sandbelt style course that plays firm and fast. The fairways intertwine between waste areas and play to greens that are surrounded by short grass. There are no water hazards, no out of bounds stakes, no rough, and more importantly, no homes. It is a pure golf experience. In fact, the caddy who was looping for my playing partner and his son, said it was very much like Streamsong. That is high praise indeed. Of course, insiders are comparing it to the world famous Seminole which is close by. The property has some elevation change on the western half and the superb routing uses this feature very well. The entire back nine plays on this side, and the 12-17 stretch is as good as it gets.
(The 477/456/386 yard par four fourth plays straightaway before doglegging right with the waste area guarding the inside line. A waste area all down the left makes this a difficult driving hole. The green thankfully is wide open and tilts to the front left. If you can successfully navigate the drive, you should have a reasonable birdie putt.)
(The short 395/359/324 par four sixth has a very cool lions mouth bunker that guards the center of this two tier green. The left is lower while upper is on the right. The fairway is incredibly wide but todays pin, in my opinion, was best attacked from the higher fairway on the right. One could hit it short and let it trundle on. Getting too far right made the green narrower, and brought the falloff to the lower half into play.)
The front nine plays on the flatter part of the property, and there are some good birdie opportunities to start the round. The first thing you’ll notice is the width of the fairways. In fact, you will not lose a ball the entire day. The second thing, and I appreciated this the most, was the putting surfaces are not overly contoured. Some of the newer courses tend to have crazy greens and I’ve come to have complete disdain for these type of putting surfaces. Here, Hanse and Wagner put one or two features in them, tilted them a certain direction, and let the golfer decide how best to attack the pin.
(The punchbowl green on the 474/444/403 yard par four twelth is complete hidden from the fairway. The hole doglegs left while climbing up and over the hill. The key is getting it just over the ridge twenty yards short so it funnels down to the putting surface. The front pins will be difficult to get close. My playing companion nearly holed his second shot!)
The back nine is fantastic and a big part of that is the curve of the doglegs. They beg and ache for aggressive lines off the tee. The reward for daring play are shorter irons, better angles, and more options. There’s the punchbowl green twelth, the crowned green at thirteen, the boomerang par four fourteenth, and everyone’s favorite, the double dogleg uphill par five fifteenth where you take on the bunker complex to get a perfect view for your third shot, or you bail out straight and fidget with a semi blind pitch over a large mound. It’s a great collection of holes with varying yardages. Toss into the mix the driveable par four sixteenth with its fall-away green followed by the ridgeline to ridgeline par three seventeenth with a gnawing waste area eating into the putting surface, and you’ll be hard pressed to find cooler holes in south Florida.
(The 174/164/144 yard par three seventeenth sets diagonally from the tee with the carry getting longer the further left you hit it. The green pitches to the front thus it’s hard to be underneath the hole. It’s very fast from above. It’s a beautiful penultimate hole.)
I love the line Golfpass’ Tim Gavrich used when he described The Park as America’s newest super-muni. By establishing $250 as the starting point for their winter rack rate for out of state golfers, $300 will be in play the next five years. When I wrote about North Palm Beach several years ago, I point out how it did 70k rounds before Jack Nicklaus redesigned it and questioned if it even needed redone. West Palm is a different story because the course was losing money every month. They raised 55M dollars to renovate this course through private and public donations. To think the best they could do was build a $250 per round municipal course is disappointing. I will say that Gil Hanse and Jim Wagner did a phenomenal job and The Park will easily make America’s Best Municipal Course list when the newest version comes out. If you come down in the summer, the price tag drops under $150. I give the The Park a solid 7 (great)(worth driving 3-4 hours to play).
[My playing partners were Class A teaching pro and his son. We all played different tee boxes. He played the black (6,640), I played the blue (6,111), and his son played the green (4,757). (The course tips out at 7,145)
It was cool seeing all the different variances from each tee. Listening to their caddy speak gave me insight into several holes that I’m not sure I would’ve picked up on. I hit 12 fairways and 11 greens, a recipe that generally produces a very good score, but I only managed a 78. My biggest concern was trying not to three putt, and trust me, you will three putt here. There are several misses around the green where making a bogey will be a good score. Price aside, I had a great time and would love to see it again. There are several pin positions I’d like to see in action.]
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