PALM BEACH GARDENS, Fla. - The land dictates everything about what a golf course is - and is not - going to be.

Not every new course gets the benefit of existing rolling, sandy terrain like the sites architects like Tom Doak, Bill Coore & Ben Crenshaw have built their careers using for their creations.

When faced with hundreds of acres of pancake-flat land - a completely blank canvas - what should a developer do?

At Panther National Golf Club, a brand-new private community 30 minutes west of Palm Beach proper, the answer was to build big - bigger than anything most golfers have ever seen.

One of the most extensively shaped golf courses ever built, Panther National represents a contemporary take on the maximalist approach to golf course design that characterized much of the 1980s, 1990s and early 2000s.

With some 400 acres at their disposal, 18-time major champion and principal course architect Jack Nicklaus, with longtime associate Chris Cochran, fashioned a heaving, meandering routing with the front side occupying the western half of the property, while the back nine sits to the east. Only once do the nines cross over: at the 9th and 18th holes, which shoot south along opposite shores of a lake to what will be the foot of a 66,000-square-foot clubhouse. This side-by-side finish echoes a favorite routing device of Pete Dye, who inducted Nicklaus into the ranks of golf course architects when they collaborated on the design of Harbour Town Golf Links in the late 1960s and set off the "signature architect" era of design, where big-time players lent their names and varying levels of input to new courses.

Panther National represents a new chapter in the signature-architect era, with Nicklaus bringing two-time PGA Champion Justin Thomas in to advise on aspects of the design. Thomas becomes the second of his peer group in professional golf to have his name associated with a major piece of course architecture, and the first to take part in a new build. Brooks Koepka advised architect Tom Doak on the redesign of Houston's Memorial Park Golf Course in 2021.

Indeed, Panther National's scorecard bears Thomas' stylized "JT" monogram beside its way-back tees, which top out at 7,864 yards (Rating: 78.7, Slope: 147). For mortals, there are six other sets of tees, ranging down to the 4,500-yard White set.

Despite the eye-popping numbers, Panther National plays shorter than its posted yardages. Most tees are elevated above expansive, fast-running fairways, giving well-hit tee shots the opportunity for a turbo-boost. Nowhere is this more likely than at the epic 654-yard par-5 11th, where a massive drop in the fairway can help a heroic drive that covers blowout bunkering roll out an extra 70 yards or more.

One can imagine the delight of club developer Dominik Senn, whose current business concerns include 4Sports & Entertainment, which manages PGA Tour players like Webb Simpson and Russell Henley, at such a feature; Senn was a professional alpine skier in his native Switzerland.

Whereas many older maximalist golf courses tend to brutalize golfers, Panther National takes a page out of the contemporary design playbook by giving mid- and higher-handicappers some hope. Several green complexes offer large gathering contours that will be employed to redirect shots toward low-lying hole locations. Approaches that miss slightly left on the first two holes will bound and roll pleasingly back toward the center of the green. The longish par-4 6th features a huge punchbowl green; all approaches but those that challenge right-side fairway bunkers will be totally blind.

There is plenty of water at Panther National, but relatively few forced carries. The most noticeable of these comes at the par-4 5th, whose smoothly oval-shaped island green looks rather out of place amid the rest of the course's more rugged aesthetic.

Par 3s are a core strength of Panther National, offering four distinct set-piece challenges. The 8th, the shortest hole on the course, plays along a boundary wall to a diabolically angled, slender green that joins up with that of the par-5 17th. Its quiet setting adjacent to the course's neighboring nature preserve is the most charming spot on the property. The most impressive of the course's one-shotters is the 15th, whose putting surface measures 80 yards from front to back, running away from the golfer for the last 30 yards. With low and high tee complexes, it can play dozens of different ways when factoring tee box, hole location and wind direction.

With a 30,000-square-foot putting course and 9-hole par-3 routing called "The Cub," Panther National Golf Club will be the centerpiece of an ultra-luxury gated community within a new, 4,752-acre mixed-use development called Avenir in the western reaches of Palm Beach Gardens. Its 218 modern homes will feature contemporary architecture and smart-home features. These estates will start at $3 million.

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