On a recent visit to Palm Beach Florida, I played the new, old West Palm Beach Municipal Golf Course. This track was originally opened in 1947 and designed by Dick Wilson, his first solo project. It is a classic Florida track that had seen better days since Arnold Palmer won its last PGA tour event, The West Palm Beach Open in 1959. The track was closed for 6 months and reopened in November of 2009. During this time, Mark McCumber, a past PGA pro and course architect was brought in to rebuild the place. Working with old photos and Wilson’s original course drawings, McCumber set out to duplicate the original plan and look. He put in new fairways and new tiff-eagle greens. Out went 50 years of overgrown scrub areas, Brazilian pepper plants and Australian pines and in came new oaks, pine and palm trees. Also upgraded and enlarged were the white sand waste bunkers that frame every hole and move throughout the entire course. I would not say this is a picturesque course having no streams, lakes or ponds and surrounded by highways most notably I-95.
While the course is wide open, the winds whip through the place big time and can cause wood and mid-iron shots in the air to move 20 yards off target. The new fairways are terrific and have a turf feel while the greens are smooth and roll true. The course is easy to get to from I-95 (only a couple of minutes) and at $37 to $45 per round, it is a good deal. From the tips, you are looking at 7002 yards, but with the winds it is better to play from the blues at 6506 that feel a lot longer. The place really does have the style of a 50’s throw back. Even the score cards are printed in a sepia brown color. When Palmer re-opened the course on November 16th, hitting the ceremonial first drive down #1, he said “it really does have the look of an old style Florida course”.
There are certainly better and more beautiful tracks to play in and around Palm Beach when visiting, but it was fun to peg it up on a nice piece of history.
Another great write up I think it would be ghreat to play and old 50's style course and them play one of the latest and greatest course to compare. Sounds like you like playing in the wind too.
__________________ I'm really not to fussed how far I drive the ball it's the number that I write down on my score card that matters!
My Bag:
Wilson or PGF V8 Driver
Wilson 3 wood
Srixon 3 Hybrid
Srixon i 701 3-P irons
Dawia sand wedge
Srixon WG-706 58 Lob wedge
Wilson putter
I'm not exactly sure what an "old style Florida course" is supposed to be, but I'd be interested in seeing something memorable and different from the usually flat terrain we tend to see around here. When I was going to some of those nice courses in Broward and Palm Beach county on that discount card, some stuck in my mind as being really nice, but I don't know that I would call any of them old fashioned. Harder Hall in Sebring plays through a pine forest. Maybe that would be as close as I could think of.
What made you feel that way?
__________________ All Titleists
907 D2 Driver, 980 3 Wood
909 Hybrid, AP2 irons
Vokey 50* AW, Vokey 56* SW
A putter that thinks it's a Scotty Cameron
Basically, the course looked wind beaten with a lot of sand and waste bunkers. A lot of the framing was with Palm trees. Also, I looked at a lot of the photos in the club house that showed what the place looked like in the 50's and 60's. The course resembled those photos closely. Based on this, I got that old time feeling while playing.
I guess there is something so artificial about most courses around here that something old fashioned looking would be a genuine pleasure to play. I'm looking forward to next summer. I'm hoping to get back to Louisville, where I grew up, and now that I know one of my cousins plays golf, we figure to play a bunch of places there. I wonder if I'll remember some of them.
One in particular, The Standard Club, is the country club my parents belonged to and where I probably played more rounds than anywhere else in the world. It used to be private, but I understand now you can pay a greens fee and play it at certain times when there aren't so many members around. Having not played there since 1966, it would be interesting to see if it's the same as I remember it. While Louisville isn't so far north, the course is a very northern style with rolling ground, hilly in some areas, forest land, lakes and streams, well bunkered with the old fashioned gray crushed gravel sand, long rough...
__________________ All Titleists
907 D2 Driver, 980 3 Wood
909 Hybrid, AP2 irons
Vokey 50* AW, Vokey 56* SW
A putter that thinks it's a Scotty Cameron
West Palm Beach Municipal GC
I'm really not to fussed how far I drive the ball it's the number that I write down on my score card that matters!
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