Bobby Weed confirmed as designer for new Michael Jordan project
Bobby Weed Golf Design has been selected to design a golf course for the new Grove XXIII private club in Hobe Sound, Florida. Basketball legend Michael Jordan is the majority partner in the project.
“Knowing the calibre of the membership and Michael’s passion for golf, we are designing a forward-thinking, progressive layout,” said Bobby Weed, who began his career with Pete Dye, was superintendent at TPC Sawgrass in the 1980s and the PGA Tour’s in-house designer from 1987-1986.
“This project is an opportunity to update how architects provide all players with a fun and interesting challenge,” added Weed. “It will be a course for tomorrow, a course with a refined edge.”
The course is set on the site of a former citrus grove and is routed with the south Florida trade winds in mind. The two nines wrap around each other while traversing the site in opposing directions.
The routing also features a crossover at the 5th and 14th tees, where players can move from one nine to the other and still finish out a nine-hole loop. This singular feature offers the membership four nine-hole permutations, enhancing both daily set-up and member tournament format possibilities.
“We are using proprietary player performance data to help establish the dimensions of features and rethinking the tenets of risk and reward that have long guided strategic golf design, but are stagnant today, especially in the face of equipment technology,” continued Weed.
The data is being provided by Darren May, co-founder of Every Ball Counts, who will become the golf coach and ambassador for Grove XXII. “The team environment encouraged by Bobby Weed allows a free flow of very valuable information,” May said. “To see this information integrated in the course design, and be part of the process, is extremely exciting.”
A contemporary clubhouse will be elevated above the open and expansive 225-acre property, offering long vistas of every golf hole.
The site will feature gentle contours and continuous sward of turf flowing from tee to green, allowing golfers to progress through the property naturally from one hole to the next. The low-profile greens will be surrounded by tight-cut grass to provide players with multiple short game options. A combination of native rough grasses, scrub/shrub plantings and the occasional specimen oak will provide a distinctive texture to the landscape.
The golf course is scheduled to be ready for play in 2019.
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Basketball legend Michael Jordan is the majority partner in the project
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The site will feature gentle contours and continuous sward of turf flowing from tee to green
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