The following golf course review of West Palm Beach Golf Club was filed by Elliot deBear, a devoted reader of GolfCommunityReviews.com and frequent golf traveler. Yesterday we posted Elliot's golf course review of a newly renovated par 3 in Palm Beach. We thank him for his thoughts and photographs.
by Elliot deBear
On a recent visit to Palm Beach Florida, I played the new/old West Palm Beach Municipal Golf Course. The course 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 the last PGA tour event held at the course, The West Palm Beach Open in 1959.
Mark McCumber, a past PGA pro and architect, was brought in to rebuild the course early in 2009. 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, pines and palm trees. McCumber also enlarged the white sand waste bunkers that frame every hole and snake their way throughout the entire layout. They serve as a substitute in terms of eye appeal for the lack of any water bodies around the course and, somewhat, as a distraction from Interstate 95 adjacent to the club.
While the course, which reopened in November, is wide open, significant winds whip through the layout and can cause wood and mid-iron shots to move 20 yards off target. The new fairways are terrific and have a turf feel; 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, is a good deal. From the tips, the layout plays to 7,002 yards, but with the winds it is better to play from the blues at 6,506; the course plays longer than that.
When Arnold Palmer helped reopen the course on November 16th, hitting the ceremonial initial drive down the first fairway, he said, “it really does have the look of an old style Florida course.” I agree; West Palm Beach Golf Club really does have the style of a ‘50s throwback. Even the scorecards are printed in a sepia brown color.
There are certainly better and more beautiful tracks to play in and around Palm Beach, but it was fun to peg it up on a nice piece of history.
Note to our readers: Happy New Year one and all!
Waste bunkers thread their way throughout West Palm Beach Golf Club.
photos by Elliot deBear
