Hobe Sound—Florida’s New Golf Mecca
Michael Jordan sure seems like a visionary now. It was in 2018 when the basketball legend selected Bobby Weed Golf Design to build his own private golf playground, the invitation-only, super-private, you-need-to-know-a-lot-of-people-to-play-there track called Grove XXIII in Hobe Sound, Florida. Others had considered putting a golf course on that particular piece of land over the years. Jordan went ahead and made it happen.
Only a few years later, he’s got new neighbors. And even more are coming.
This is the tale of how Hobe Sound—a sleepy little town about 100 miles north of Miami that’s a mecca for boaters and fishing enthusiasts—is now becoming a hotbed of exclusive golf for some of the game’s most passionate and most fortunate players. Grove XXIII represents the epicenter of what is an incredible concentration of highly private courses. Some are open, more are on the way. The overwhelming majority of them are all just a short drive from one another.
Population of the town: About 13,000.
Golfers would do just about anything to be able to play one of these tracks, and let’s go ahead and say they’ll spend significantly more than $13,000. Initiation fees alone for most places will begin at the hundreds of thousands of dollars, and in special cases—namely Atlantic Fields, a property being developed by Discovery Land Co.—lots begin at $6 million.
“It just seems like the golf world here has exploded,” says three-time major winner Nick Price, who has lived in the area for nearly 30 years and is one of the original designers of McArthur. “I think there’s going to be 1,500 to approximately 2,000 new memberships in this area, all at a premium, premium price. I’m not sure where all those people are going to come from, but the guys building these courses are confident that they’re going to find all those people. It’s a great time to be a homeowner here.”
South Florida—the Palm Beach County area in particular—has long been a mecca for the game’s biggest names: Jack Nicklaus, Tiger Woods, Greg Norman and Gary Player, not to mention a few dozen current top pros including Dustin Johnson and Rory McIlroy. Nicklaus moved to the area in 1966, starting what is now a migration that is in its seventh decade and still going strong. The selling points for golf and golfers in this part of the world are many: No state income tax, no offseason because of weather, a plethora of courses and a plethora of interest.
Florida in general, and the Hobe Sound community foremost among them all, is only getting more popular for many reasons. “There’s a golf course almost every other mile going up down there,” says superstar golfer Ernie Els, who has won four major championships and has lived in Florida for the past 15 years. “It’s where people are moving. They want it as a destination. A lot more people are coming into town.”
Florida’s generous tax laws are an obvious part of the draw. Another reason might not immediately come to mind. “Well, you can start with Covid,” says Els. Prior to the pandemic, Florida courses weren’t nearly as busy as they are now, but all of that changed during the Covid golf boom. “A lot of courses had no waiting list. They were actually very open for new membership,” says Els. “And then Covid hit, people started moving out of big cities. People felt those cities were becoming run down, not safe, and it led to a huge influx of people. Our area was always a second-home area for a lot of wealthy people, and now it’s a first-home area.”
Most golf communities in Florida—in particular the expensive ones—now have historically high membership waiting lists.
Els is involved in a Hobe Sound project called Apogee, which is currently under development. Ultimately, it will consist of three different 18-hole courses created by such A-list designers as Gil Hanse, Tommy Fazio, Mike Davis and Kyle Phillips. The first is scheduled to open later this year, with others in 2024 and 2025. Among its many amenities, Apogee will include a 360-degree practice facility designed by Rory McIlroy, a course advisor along with Els.
The project is backed by two owners who know plenty about golf, real estate and sports in Michael Pascucci and Stephen Ross. Ross, who owns the Miami Dolphins, is chairman of The Related Companies, which has more than $60 billion in assets. Pascucci’s vast resume includes being the developer and owner of Sebonack in the Hamptons, a tony Long Island, New York golf course ranked No. 43 in the United States by Golf Digest. (It’s located next to Shinnecock Hills and National Golf Links of America.)
Apogee, which is on just over 1,200 acres of land, will differ from many developments in the area in that it won’t have its fairways lined with homes that people can buy. It’ll instead go a different route, with villas available for vacation rental. Call it a come, stay, play and leave model. According to a source, Apogee has 60 founding members who invested $1.5 million each to join; regular initiation fees will range from $475,000 to $600,000.
It is a massive undertaking. How massive? “I’m moving six million cubic yards of dirt up and down,” Pascucci says. That’s roughly 13 billion pounds of earth.
“Apogee won’t be a typical Florida flat golf course,” Pascucci says. “I’m building golf villas—beautiful two-bedroom, four-bedroom, six-bedroom, and eight-bedroom golf villas that the club owns. People who are younger, who don’t want to commit to a lot of money to buy a place in Florida and have that responsibility, they can come down and play all the golf they want, bring their wife, their kids.” Just as many New Yorkers have moved to Florida, Colin Burns, who spent 30 years as general manager of the renowned Winged Foot in Mamaroneck, New York, was recently signed as chief operating officer of the property.
Another star of the New York golf world is moving into the Hobe Sound area: Ken Bakst, the creator of the highly lauded Friar’s Head golf course on Long Island. Bakst is a top-rated amateur player who won the 1997 Mid-Amateur and has played in The Masters. He and his wife took a trip in 2021 to visit friends in the Hobe Sound area, and on a drive he saw acres of ranch land, about a half-hour west from the coast. “I was immediately intrigued by the land when I saw it for the first time,” he says. Soon after, he purchased 3,902 acres that will become The Ranch, a vast property that will have a pair of 18-hole golf courses as well as an immense, 175-acre practice area. “The practice facilities that we have planned are unprecedented in their breadth and scale,” Bakst explains.
The Ranch will have 175 homes, but none of them will be built near the golf courses. The majority of the property will remain untouched by the development. Bakst wants to keep the feel that called him to the area in the first place, property he describes as “so remote and serene.” His goal is to start construction in early 2024, and he thinks The Ranch might open by 2025.
Rolling Sands is another course that’s only in the planning stages at this time. It’s being designed by Tom Doak. It will be west of Hobe Sound, in Indiantown, and is expected to start the first phases of construction late this year. Among the amenities slated for this 239-acre parcel is a helicopter pad.
Discovery Land Co., the high-end real estate company with a vast portfolio of luxurious properties around the world (such as Baker’s Bay in the Bahamas, the Yellowstone Club in Big Sky, Montana and Chileno Bay in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico) is also coming to Hobe Sound. Discovery was created nearly 30 years ago by Michael Meldman, who also went on to found the Casamigos Tequila brand with George Clooney and Rande Gerber. (That’s one of the reasons you’ll see endless rows of Casamigos bottles at the bars on Discovery properties.) Discovery has broken ground on Atlantic Fields, a Hobe Sound property that’s right next to Grove XXIII.
“Florida in general has incredible traction,” says a high-level source at Discovery. “More and more people are moving there. Florida has the biggest light on it right now.”
Unlike any of the other properties in the area, getting into Atlantic Fields takes far more than a big check for initiation. “You must own property,” says one source at Discovery. There will be roughly 320 lots here, across 750 acres, and the least expensive lot will start at $6 million, with bigger pieces of land going for up to $15 million. Homes will cost an additional $1,000 to $3,000 per square foot, according to estimates, each customized to their owners’ design. “We sticker shock quite a few people—but we back it up,” says the source at Discovery.
Tom Fazio is the designer of the golf courses at Atlantic Fields. The short, executive course should be open by Thanksgiving, and the 18-hole-track may be done next year. In case you think the short course might have limited options, know that Fazio’s design for that one alone calls for 15 greens and 37 tee boxes, giving golfers the option of essentially playing 33 different holes, one of them 620 yards long.
The golf business is like many other businesses. It’s about supply and demand. There is a demand for best-in-class golf courses right now. And as such, there are people willing to bankroll the supply of them. While Hobe Sound is booming for golf expansion, there are other projects nearby, including the golf epicenter of Jupiter and Palm Beach Gardens not far to the southeast.
“I was looking for a house for myself when I moved my golf division from London to Jupiter,” says Dominik Senn, who is behind Panther National in Palm Beach Gardens. It’s a new club, set on 2,400 acres, and will open in November. Senn is a former professional skier from Switzerland, and the owner of 4sports & Entertainment AG, among other business ventures.
Panther National will have an 18-hole course designed by the legendary golfer Jack Nicklaus, who has done more than 400 golf courses around the world, and young buck Justin Thomas, who is doing his first. Panther National will have homes ranging in price from $4.4 million to $15 million, and home owners will pay an estimated $300,000 initiation for golf membership, while non-residents will pay $400,000, according to a source. The setup will include a lifestyle club with a spa and 10 miles of nature walks.
“I didn’t think there was a modern community in South Florida,” says Senn. “That drove me in the beginning. I think everything is very dated and high-end. That’s what’s driving me to build it myself.”
He wants his course his way.
Jordan felt the same way about Grove XXIII. He loves golf, savors privacy, still has an incessant need for competition and wants things a certain way—his way. The result: Grove XXIII, the Roman numerals being a nod to the number he wore while winning an NCAA title at North Carolina, six NBA titles with the Chicago Bulls and becoming arguably (probably) the best player basketball has ever known.
The names of those who have been known to play Grove XXIII aren’t just a who’s-who of golf. Former President Barack Obama has played there. Jordan’s hockey equivalent, Wayne Gretzky, has played there. Ray Allen, who hit one of the biggest shots in Miami Heat history and was one of the best shooters ever to take to an NBA floor, has played there and even has a Grove XXIII bag. The biggest names on the PGA Tour are often there, relishing both the privacy it provides and the world-class facilities where they can train.
According to several guests who have played the course, the food, service, wine and cigar selections are all world class—just what you would imagine from Michael Jordan. Cigars are everywhere. The clubhouse has rows of humidors on display, each of them decorated with the Grove XXIII black cat logo. Top-tier brands of handmade cigars are for sale, as is Cincoro, the award-winning Tequila launched by Jordan and four NBA team owners. The entire club is devoid of the stuffy atmosphere found in many private golf clubs, with a relaxed dress policy on the course and in the clubhouse. Several six-bedroom bungalows, complete with barbeque pits, pool tables and other special amenities are available to out-of-town members.
Brooks Koepka was at Grove XXIII on a day that shook the golf world, the morning that the merger of the PGA Tour and LIV Golf was announced in a move that stunned players on both sides. In that moment, he could absorb the news unbothered, just as Jordan envisioned when he came up with the idea for Grove XXIII. “I was sitting at Grove at the bar there having breakfast and I saw it on TV. Watched a little bit of the interview, and that was it,” Koepka said at the time.
After that? “Just went out and practiced,” he said.
Such is the luxury that Grove XXIII affords and that others are, and will, try to emulate.
“It’s a cool place,” Phil Mickelson said during an interview in 2020. (He also said he had to wait before getting his invitation for membership.) “He did an exceptional job there.”
The amenities at Grove XXIII are like none other—golf carts that reportedly can reach speeds of 35 mph because Jordan abhors slow play; tee and pin placements that are made each day after studying what the unpredictable South Florida wind is expected to do; even Carolina blue tee markers in a nod to Jordan’s alma mater. Tennis star Caroline Wozniacki was one of the first to reveal another Grove XXIII gem—drones that bring drinks out to players on the course. There’s no slowing down at the turn. Again, Jordan’s house, Jordan’s rules, and slow play be damned at all costs.
It is a highlight for anyone who is invited to step onto the grounds. Danielle Kang won on the LPGA Tour in 2022; two days after collecting $225,000 for that victory, she got to play with Gretzky at Grove XXIII. If that wasn’t enough, a fan shouted at her when her round was over.
“Nice win,” the man yelled.
It was Jordan. “I’m just staring at him,” Kang told reporters a few days later. “This is Michael Jordan. So cool.”
Rickie Fowler is there all the time. He’s gone head-to-head with Jordan, giving him about 10 shots when they face off, and it’s a battle whenever they play. Especially at Grove XXIII. Which, it turns out, is not what some pros privately call the place.
“The nickname for it is Slaughterhouse XXIII,” Fowler said on a podcast with Golf.com in 2020.
The reason? It’s set up for Jordan’s game, and that tends to be a double whammy for the world’s best players—and yes, some will acknowledge they have lost some side wagers to Jordan while playing there. They all can hit it longer than Jordan, but the course almost penalizes them for that ability by having smaller landing areas for the biggest hitters. Jordan’s drives, meanwhile, tend to end up in far more accessible parts of the fairways.
Fiercely determined to keep it as private as he can for as long as he can, Jordan has rarely said anything about the course. There’s a website, but the home page is merely the depiction of a cat, a nod to Black Cat Ventures, the golf technology fund founded by Jordan. Caddies get around on speedy scooters that look like miniature motorcycles, another element for super-fast pace of play. And with an owner like Jordan, who famously told this magazine he enjoys six cigars a day, cigars are not just welcomed, but encouraged.
Whether it’s Grove XXIII or any of the many other properties coming to the area, Hobe Sound is becoming the mecca of south Florida golf. The draw is evident: Weather that allows year-round play, the convenience of a great location and so much more.
“You can be in Palm Beach in 40 minutes, you go 10 more minutes and you’re at the ocean,” says Pascucci. “You have access to all the shopping, the restaurants, everything like that. So many people have moved there. There’s not enough golf now.”
There may never be enough golf. But there’s no shortage of people trying to change that.
The Hobe Sound Lowdown
The superstar lineup of courses around Hobe Sound, Florida.
Hobe Sound Clubs
Grove XXIII
Owner: Michael Jordan
Designer: Bobby Weed
Opened: 2019
Initiation Fee: N/A
Michael Jordan’s course sparked the interest in Hobe Sound. Jordan reportedly tried to keep membership below 100 people—all invited by him. The cost of membership (and the list of members) is a closely guarded secret. The club is so intriguing that any detail that leaks out makes headlines, such as when tennis great Caroline Wozniacki captured video of one of the course’s special features—drones bringing drinks to players on the course, just so they won’t have to stop at the turn and slow down play.
Apogee Club
Owners: Michael Pascucci and Stephen Ross
Designers: Gil Hanse and Jim Wagner; Tommy Fazio and Mike Davis; Kyle Phillips
Opens: December 1
Initiation Fee: $475,000 to $650,000
Three courses will be built at Apogee, the first scheduled to open later this year and others coming on board in 2024 and 2025. Each will have a distinctly different feel and designing team. Ernie Els and Rory McIlroy are helping with the project as well. According to sources, Apogee has 60 founding members who invested $1.5 million each to join while regular initiation fees will range from $475,000 for locals to $650,000 for national members.
Atlantic Fields
Owners: Discovery Land Co.
Designers: Tom Fazio Opens: 2023 (short course)
Initiation Fee: Lots begin at $6 million, which includes membership
This brand-new project by Discovery Land Co. is adjacent to Grove XXIII. Unlike the other courses on this list, getting into Discovery requires buying property, and the cheapest lot here begins at $6 million and goes considerably higher. There will be around 300 lots at Atlantic Fields, and the property will encompass 750 acres. The executive course is scheduled to open around Thanksgiving, the 18-hole course coming in a year or so.
McArthur Golf Club
Owners: Reyes Brothers of Chicago
Designers: Tom Fazio and Nick Price (original course), Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw (new course)
Opened: 2004
Initiation Fee: $300,000 It’s not new, but it’s elite and so private that some locals don’t even know exactly how to get there.
McArthur—originally designed by Tom Fazio and Nick Price, with former Miami Dolphins quarterback and Pro Football Hall of Famer Dan Marino among the earliest investors—has been around for more than 20 years. It is growing; Ben Crenshaw and Bill Coore were tasked with building a second course that will open later this year. There’s a long waiting list.
Medalist Golf Club
Owners: Members
Designers: Greg Norman and Pete Dye, redesigned by Bobby Weed
Opened: 1995
Initiation Fee: N/A
Medalist is among the old guard courses of Hobe Sound. The world got a look at this private enclave in the early days of the pandemic, when The Match: Champions for Charity, was held on the course. It pitted Tiger Woods and Peyton Manning against Phil Mickelson and Tom Brady, with heckling by Charles Barkley. “Shut your mouth, Chuck,” Brady said after eagling the seventh. Woods and Manning went on to win the match by one hole.
The Ranch
Owner: Ken Bakst Designers: Whitman, Axland and Cutten
Opens: 2025 (est.)
Initiation Fee: N/A
Ken Bakst won the U.S. Mid-Amateur in 1997, earning him a spot in the 1998 Masters, and not long after that he turned his attention to golf course development, creating Friar’s Head, which is ranked No. 15 on Golf Digest’s list of America’s 100 Greatest golf courses. Bakst is planning two 18-hole golf courses for The Ranch, which could open in 2025. The practice facility will be massive (it will even include a short course) and the homes built on property will be far from the golf, maintaining the feel Bakst fell in love with when he first saw the land. He hopes to begin construction sometime next year, but The Ranch remains in the early stages of development.
Palm Beach Area
Panther National
Owner: Dominik Senn Designers: Jack Nicklaus and Justin Thomas
Opens: November
Initiation Fee: $300,000 to $400,000 (est.)
Panther National in Palm Beach Gardens features one of the golf world’s biggest names: Jack Nicklaus. The Golden Bear (who created The Bear’s Club in 1999) is being joined on this project by Justin Thomas, one of the young guns of the PGA Tour, and they are creating an 18-hole course as well as a par 3 short course. The grand opening is scheduled for November 17, although construction of the clubhouse won’t begin for more than a year. Panther National will have 218 residences (ranging in price from $4.4 million to $15 million) and the company claims to have sold $270 million worth of real estate in the past year.
