Are Florida's new golf communities an improvement over their predecessors?

Thanks to the post-pandemic surge, real estate golf is booming again in Florida.

Significant development of golf courses tied to master-planned residential communities ground to a halt in the wake of the late-2000s recession, but has picked up again as golf has gained in popularity throughout the 2020s so far, especially in the Sunshine State, where more than a dozen new golf courses have opened alongside real estate components in the last few years.

I have played several of these new courses over the last few years with a keen eye on course design. Specifically, I have been eager to assess whether the overall greater level of design sophistication I have detected across golf in general has trickled down to master-planned golf communities in particular.

My takeaway is that there is cause for optimism but still some significant flaws in the prevailing approach to golf-and-real-estate planning and design.

Contemporary residential golf courses have responded to increased hitting distances at all levels of golf, with developers starting to give architects wider corridors in which to build holes - especially par 4s and par 5s. This makes for less anxiety off tee boxes about wayward drives finding someone's pool, although these concerns still do exist. For the most part, though, there is less stress off the tee even after homes are fully built out. Risk-reward holes like reachable par 5s and drivable par 4s are easier to build now that there is more room to play.

At the brand-new Glynlea Country Club in Port St. Lucie, Fla., Jim Furyk and architect Mike Beebe fashioned a brilliant sub-300-yarder at the 5th hole that adds some intrigue early on in the round. Without sufficient space in which to operate, such a risk-reward hole would have put neighboring homeowners at significant risk of danger from errant tee shots. But in its current envelope, it works perfectly.

If you've ever wondered why there is so much water on Florida golf courses, it's because the flatness of most golf course sites means that the dirt used to shape the holes typically comes from onsite. Architects and builders need to extract thousands of cubic feet of fill dirt in order to create movement. To do that, they need to dig large ponds, which in turn function as holding tanks for water with which the course is irrigated. Historically, these ponds have created all manner of challenges, often in the form of peninsula and island greens, that tend to eat thousands of golf balls per year. While newer courses sometimes have one or two such holes, architects have wisely pushed these necessary ponds to the sides of holes and closer to tee boxes in the hopes that golfers will lose fewer balls.

Not far from Glynlea, Astor Creek Golf & Country Club is another recent development course. There, architect Chris Wilczynski took great care to minimize the intrusion of these water features. There are 15 different ponds and lagoons of varying sizes scattered throughout the course, but water only comes into play significantly on four tee shots and three approach shots. In all of these instances, it is a flanking hazard, meaning there are effectively zero forced carries over water - an admirable achievement for a flat Florida golf course. This restraint adds to the enjoyment of a round because it frees up the golfer to be challenged by features that don't produce lost balls.

Minimizing the influence of water is one of several ways in which course architects have been able to make real estate courses more playable and interesting. Economical bunkering is a function of both budget constraints and the need to add interest to the golf course outside of the black-and-white difficulty of relentless water hazards. Architects are increasingly interested by pre-World War II golf course architecture, which is exerting influence on today's golf courses. Bunkers have moved much closer to the ideal playing lines, whereas in the postwar period, many architects placed them in penal positions beside landing areas and greens. Centerline bunkers have made a comeback, forcing golfers to choose a route around them.

Green design has also taken a step forward. Whether it's the rolling contours embraced by Donald Ross or A.W. Tillinghast or the more formal tiers, knobs and template designs of Seth Raynor, old-style green shaping has made its way into the repertoire of many new community courses. Because these layouts are intended to ultimately become fully private clubs, they need to hold golfers' interest through numerous rounds per year. Interesting greens with a variety of different hole locations are crucial to repeat playability.

Webbs Reserve Golf Club, located in the mega-development of Babcock Ranch east of Punta Gorda, Fla., is a Nicklaus Design real estate course that succeeds primarily on the strength of its inventive greens. One standout is the short par-4 4th hole, whose long trapezoidal putting surface has no shortage of interesting potential hole locations.

In the decades preceding the recession of the 2000s, hundreds of real estate courses - in Florida and beyond - failed to produce engaging golf, instead opting for pretty aesthetics and heavy exterior shaping but too little substance where it mattered. It is no coincidence that many of these courses languished in the 2010s, either closing for good or receiving substantial and costly renovations that have breathed new life into them. While some new courses still fall a little bit short of being truly engaging, the average quality of new-build real-estate-centric golf courses is higher than it used to be.

Real estate community golf courses have actually devolved from their 1980s and 90s counterparts in certain ways. Whatever hole-to-hole improvements golf course architects have made of late, the overall developers are sticking them with compromised, even tortured routings that prioritize numbers of homesites above all else. While I realize that the mission of these developments is to sell and build hundreds of homes, I see little excuse for some of the bizarre and awkward overall course routings many communities have been saddled with.

Golf and real estate have been bedfellows for a century, and there are numerous examples of communities that managed to build hundreds of homes that sit in relative harmony with the neighboring golf course. One of the greatest examples of this phenomenon is Harbour Town Golf Links in South Carolina, which manages to be a brilliantly walkable routing despite the fact that more than 200 residences overlook the golf course. By establishing rules about the height of and color of neighboring dwellings, Sea Pines community developer Charles Fraser managed to give hundreds of people a view of the golf course without compromising the experience of playing the course. If only today's developers had a similar sense of restraint.

Long cart rides across roads and through backyards take away from the experience of playing golf. With so many communities pushing wellness as an amenity, the fact that so few new community golf courses are remotely walkable is tremendously disappointing and shortsighted. It does a disservice both to golfers and residents who deserve a thoughtfully designed place to live and play.

This phenomenon related to the earlier point about how flat sites require tons of fill to be dug out of artificial ponds. At dozens of Florida golf courses, one of those ponds doubles as the driving range. Although I have encountered my fair share of aqua ranges, intentionally whacking golf balls into a body of water will always feel wrong. I cannot get over it, although I will give Glynlea's aqua range a shoutout here for its liberal use of different floating green targets, which break up the scene and provide plenty to aim at.

Golf course architects have made positive strides in adding new layers of sophistication and new levels of playability to real estate-tied golf courses. But their efforts will continue to be compromised by overall developers who refuse to put golf first, and instead confine courses to disorienting routings that confuse and frustrate golfers, rather than delighting them.

Compact, walkable golf courses are not only popular but lucrative. Both Dream Golf and Cabot are getting into real estate at projects like Sand Valley and Cabot Citrus Farms, but both entities have a golf-first strategy. They know that unencumbered routings make for better golf courses, and better golf courses attract residents faster and at higher dollar values. Here's hoping more golf community developers take heed.

Architecture

July 27, 2018

Want to know why golf holes and courses are the way they are, and why you love some and hate others? Learn all about golf course architecture here.

GolfPass Living

August 6, 2018