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Alex Elias  Formerly a 1989 Arthur Hills–designed course, The Match at Jonathan’s Landing Golf Club (Old Trail), redesigned by Gil Hanse and Jim Wagner, strays away from the typical South Florida-style golf course. “It really is different because the course doesn’t have any houses in between the holes, which you would normally find on a South Florida course,” said Jared Werner, Head Golf Professional at Jonathan’s Landing Golf Club. As the property benefits from the fairways not being lined with houses and much of the water situated along the perimeter, Hanse and Wagner were able to utilize their distinctive bunkering as a defense on adjacent holes.  Steve North “Hanse’s design ties the holes together tremendously,” said Ben Spector, Assistant Golf Professional at Jonathan’s Landing Golf Club. “For example, the Par-5 1st and Par-4 18th (pictured above) share deep, severe bunkers.”  As a complement to the open playing corridors, Hanse and Wagner designed a varied set of greens, including the punchbowl third, the long, narrow fourth, and the “Dustpan” seventh. “The greens are the defense of the golf course,” said Werner. “Hanse and Wagner give golfers options, requiring players to commit to their shot selection. On certain hole locations, golfers must sometimes play away from the flag and let the contours of the green bring the ball closer to the hole.” Designed with match play, not stroke play, in mind, Werner said, “The design forces players to decide how aggressive they want to be and opens up the possibility for every club in the bag to be used.”
The Par-5 2nd and Par-4 13th, in particular, require strategic decision-making. Referencing the Par-5 2nd as “the prettiest hole on the course,” Werner explained, “With a large water hazard along its right side, the tee shot invites players to take on as much risk in order to shorten the hole and gain a better angle to a narrow green that slopes from back to front, featuring a false front.” Later in the round, the Par-4 13th is reminiscent of both the Par-3.5 14th at Ohoopee Match Club, where Hanse drew inspiration for the culture of the Match Course, and the Par-4 16th at nearby The Park West Palm. At 298 yards, this drivable Par-4 features a slightly elevated, severely contoured green, protected by a greenside bunker, five bunkers positioned sixty yards short, and a steep run-off behind the green. “When you’re standing on the tee, you think it’s an easy hole, but if you carry it even slightly long, a short chip can quickly go off the green. I’ve made an eagle, birdie a handful of times, and probably bogey more than I’ve made par,” said Spector. In transforming a relatively flat and monotonous property, Hanse and Wagner delivered a unique, challenging, and enjoyable course that has cemented The Match at Jonathan’s Landing Golf Club as one of the top courses in the Palm Beach/Jupiter area.
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Alex Elias  Founded in 1897, Belleair Country Club is the oldest club in Florida. Originally a six-hole course, the West Golf Course expanded to eighteen holes in 1909. In 1915, Donald Ross redesigned the West Course and added the East Golf Course. Less than a decade later, in 1924, Ross returned to revise both courses, drawing on another decade of experience designing courses across the U.S. In 2020, Belleair Country Club hired Fry/Straka Global Golf Course Design to oversee the restoration of the West Golf Course. To return the course to Ross’ 1924 design, Jason Straka turned to historical records stored at the Tufts Archives at Pinehurst Resort (Pinehurst, North Carolina) and The Belleview Inn (Belleair, Florida). “The vast bulk of the work we did at Belleair was to undo what had been done over the past sixty years,” said Straka. “Through previous rebuilds, where the greens had been built on top of the previous greens rather than removed and rebuilt at the same grade, and decades of top-dressing, the greens had been raised significantly—five, six, seven feet in the air, even more in some cases. As a result, there was a big misconception that Ross’ greens were inverted saucers, but that couldn’t be further from the truth.” As the greens had drastically strayed from Ross’ vision, the green on the Par-3 4th had been pushed up several feet, with runoffs in all directions, so that if you stood on the tee, you couldn’t see the Intracoastal Waterway behind the green. Restored to Ross’ design, No. 4 now plays slightly downhill to an island green surrounded almost entirely by sand. Jim Slattery, Director of Golf at Belleair Country Club, described the Par-3 as “incredibly restored” and “absolutely beautiful.” “Not only does the green now sit down, offering a view of the water, but it appears as if the water is directly behind it, when in fact there are two fairways between the green and the water,” said Slattery. The fourteenth green was perhaps the most dramatic. “As we reviewed Ross’ notes, Ross had a four-foot backsplash on the fourteenth green, where if you hit it slightly long, the ball would feed back towards the center of the green. But when we stood there, the green was built up like a volcano, falling away on each side,” said Straka. “When we started lowering the fourteenth green, we went through the layers of the old greens, like a birthday cake. On most greens, we knew when we got down to the original grade because the surrounding grade was tied in better, but on the fourteenth we hit the old railroad bed, which Ross had built the green on.”  Straka’s restoration of Ross’ cop mounds, “inverted bunkers,” and streams—which come into play on eleven of the eighteen holes—had an immense effect on returning the course to how Ross intended it to be played. Referencing No. 3, which Straka admitted “was painstakingly restored to Ross’ design,” Slattery said, “The strategy has really come back to life.” “With the return of the cop mounds and streams, you can really see how brilliant Ross was. Members would tend to hit away from the stream, but with the return of the cop mounds, players are forced back towards the center, bringing the stream into play. On No. 3 especially, but really throughout the entire course, players now have to think about the risk/reward much more on the tee,” said Slattery.  In all, Straka restored seventeen holes and replaced an existing Par-3 with the Par-3 7th. The downhill Par-3 7th plays to a peninsula green that extends into the Intracoastal Waterway. Although there was some hesitancy to design a new hole, Straka said, “The consensus was that if Ross had had access to the land, then he would have used it,” as at the time the peninsula was owned by the town of Belleair.
“If you hit it short, long, or right, you're in the water, and if you hit it left, you're in a bunker, and possibly cop mounds. It's a demanding hole, but the view trumps even the difficulty of it,” said Slattery. Alex Elias  Five months after hosting The ANNIKA driven by Gainbridge at Pelican for the fourth consecutive year, Pelican Golf Club is set to host the 2024 SEC Women’s Golf Championship. As Pelican Golf Club has cemented itself as an ambassador for women’s golf, Justin Sheehan, Director of Golf at Pelican Golf Club, said, “It means so much to us to be hosting the women. From Day 1, the Doyle family (Founders of Pelican Golf Club) wanted the golf world to see this isn’t a club just for men.”
“There’s something incredibly special about the women’s game,” said Sheehan. “It’s under appreciated and important to keep supporting it.” Heading into the 2024 SEC Women’s Golf Championship, eight of the fourteen SEC teams rank inside the Top 20. “The SEC is one of the strongest, if not the strongest conference in the country. It’s where you find yourself competing against the best amateurs in the world. If you can win an SEC Championship, then you have reached the highest level of Division 1 golf,” said Angelica Moresco, former University of Alabama Women’s Golfer. Within the field, five SEC players are on the 2024 Annika Award Spring Watch List: Maisie Filler (Florida), Maria Jose Marin (Arkansas), Ingrid Lindblad (LSU), Caitlyn Macnab (Ole Miss), and Louise Rydqvist (South Carolina). “The composure that these young women have is so impressive. They’re so level headed,” said Sheehan. “Many of the best players don’t excel because they have certain physical traits that are substantially better, but rather because they understand how to play golf.” A second-shot golf course with firm and challenging green complexes, Sheehan said, “The ability to manage the green complexes will be key, but with multiple long Par-4s on the course, whoever can hit some long, high 180-yard shots into the greens will separate themselves.” |
