![]() In addition to Whitman, Axland and Cutten are Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw Tom Doak Gil Hanse and Jim Wagner Tom Fazio Tommy Fazio and Mike Davis Kyle Phillips and Nicklaus Design. Tabbed with making that happen are some of the biggest architects in the profession. Imagination, engineering and money will be required to transcend the limitations of these flat parcels that are largely indistinguishable from the terrain on which hundreds of other south Florida courses have been built. As one architect familiar with the properties puts it, “These people are investing tens of millions of dollars, and none of the sites are any good.” A lot of squinting is required to picture a similar level of destination-worthy golf in Hobe Sound. What exactly is happening in Martin County, and to a lesser extent adjacent Palm Beach County, that’s so attractive to golf’s highest rollers and prognosticators? For 15 years, almost all new course construction has been driven not by need or location but rather by the discovery of gorgeous golf sites like Streamsong and Sand Valley. The plans total 162 new golf holes, not counting several short par-3 and regulation-length practice courses. ![]() Another club, McArthur, has added a second course that will open this fall. Across a 10-mile stretch of Martin County, west of the sleepy beach town of Hobe Sound and just north of Jupiter, these investors are building or preparing to build eight private upscale courses at five properties. Some of the most esteemed players in investment, real estate and golf development-Bakst at The Ranch Michael Pascucci at The Apogee Club with partner Stephen Ross Discovery Land Company with Atlantic Fields Chris Shumway’s (investor and founder of Shumway Capital) Rolling Sands and Dominik Senn’s Panther National (15 miles south in Palm Beach Gardens)-are sensing something similar, namely an opportunity to capitalize on the surging demand for private golf in this section of Florida. ![]() As Bakst sees it, this property has the potential to achieve something greater than its countenance suggests. Axland, Whitman and partner Keith Cutten will build The Ranch. Large portions of Friar’s Head, now ranked 15th on America’s 100 Greatest Golf Courses, were dead flat and had to be transformed into a riveting tapestry of sand, bumps, fescues and frolicking turf, much of the work done by Dave Axland and Rod Whitman, who helped construct the course for architects Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw in the early 2000s. It’s difficult to envision an architecturally compelling design existing on this site, but Bakst has been through this before. Little here suggests the makings of a national-level golf club: no heaving sand dunes, no sunset marsh vistas, no forests of elevated tees and cascading creeks. ![]() A few pockets of trees break the horizon, but the only other elevations are dozens of seven-foot-high white stakes that represent the tees, fairways and greens of what will become the East and West courses. Eventually we come to a section of land that looks mostly like what we’ve passed: flat, grassy and intersected with drainage ditches. We drive for half a mile across barren pastureland and through a series of steel gates that prevent the wanderlust of the roughly 800 head of cattle that call the property home. We’re off to explore what will become The Ranch, his soon-to-be 36-hole golf club in Martin County, Florida. Ken Bakst, the founder and developer of Friar’s Head on Long Island, crouches into the driver’s seat of a two-man Gator utility vehicle and cranks the engine. 162 holes, 13 big-name architects, all within a 10-mile radius
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