59 Their combined attributes have resulted in a course of epic scale: an abundance of width, enormous hazards and rollercoaster contour. Millions of cubic yards of earth have been moved, creating four lakes – one large enough to land a seaplane, which might not be out of the question for the club’s clientele – and a course with elevation changes that are rare in Florida, and a stark contrast to the West. There are seven holes that interact with the water, although it can be avoided with relative ease. Davis and Fazio perhaps had Dr Alister MacKenzie’s 13 principles of good golf design to hand as they worked on the layout – it certainly delivers a near-complete absence of the annoyance and irritation caused by the necessity of looking for lost balls. There is one MacKenzie principle that the South course does not adhere to: ‘all the artificial features should have so natural an appearance that a stranger is unable to distinguish them from nature itself’. There is no doubting the hand of man. This feels like a reasonable aesthetic choice in the circumstances, and there are countless great courses that do not in the least bit look like they were shaped by nature. The bunkering is particularly striking – a two-tone approach that combines massive sharp-edged, white-sand razor clams, often directly in the line of play, with more rugged natural waste areas, mostly on hole borders, where the sand is a few shades darker. It’s easy to understand the choice of more formal hazards (which are lined with Better Billy Bunker) – to give the South an identity that differentiates it from Apogee’s other layouts. But the formality would have been very impractical to achieve across the entire site, given how vast the playing areas are. The result is a hybrid of formal and natural styling. Holes on the South course are memorable and varied. Even after a single play, all are easy to recall. Among the standouts are two short par fours. If you tee forward on the eighth, there is temptation to take a Looking back on the par-five ninth, with the first hole to the left “ Davis and Fazio perhaps had Dr Alister MacKenzie’s 13 principles of good golf to hand as they worked on the layout” APOGEE SOUTH Photo: Stephen Szurlej
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