76 REPORT The Club at Quail Ridge in Boynton Beach, Florida, has completed a $21 million redesign of its North course, by golf course architects Fry/Straka and contractor NMP Golf Construction. The back nine reopened in November 2024 and the front nine is reopening in mid-January 2025. The project comes five years after the club invested $7.5 million in a Bobby Weed renovation of its South course. After several meetings and pre-bids, Quail Ridge and the design team selected NMP Golf Construction as the contractor. “Quail Ridge has been actively reimagining every part of the club and community over the last 10 years,” says general manager Bill Langley. “Our most recent masterplan included a total revamp of the North course and perimeter of our community, replacing a 50-year-old tennis facility with a new modern racquet sports facility and relocating our community entrance.” The brief for Fry/Straka was to make the North course a stark contrast to the South, which has raised playing surfaces, quite small bunkers and crowned greens. “Every hole has undergone a dramatic transformation,” says architect Jason Straka. “However, those whose topography was dramatically altered are the most significant. For example, on the sixth, a lake has been replaced with 60 feet of fill. The new hole is a par four of around 320 yards and plays some 40-plus feet uphill, whereas the original hole was dead flat.” There is a now a large central ridge on the back nine, which several holes play to and from, including the stretch from eleven to fifteen. “My favourite is the fifteenth because it is downhill from tee to green, offering a hole that is quite unusual to this part of Florida,” says Straka. The design team have worked to create a golf experience where players ‘feel’ the elevation change throughout the round. “The short second hole has a small perched green cut into a large hillside with steep falloffs around it,” says Straka. “The sixth green has the deepest bunkers on the course – over 10 feet. The eleventh and thirteenth approaches play significantly uphill, with dramatic false fronts and falloffs around the putting surfaces. However, nearly all greens have dramatically flashed backstops and kickplates to aid in navigating around or totally avoiding hazards, as well as highlight the terrain we crafted, a style not often possible in this part of Florida. We were able to create these features because of the elevation change we created.” Darryl Bartlett, NMP’s senior project manager, says: “After doing hundreds of renovation projects, this is the most transformative one we have worked Delivering the dramatic Quail Ridge unveils results of North course redesign, completed by Fry/Straka and NMP Golf Construction. “ Every hole has undergone a dramatic transformation”
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