Toby Ingleton returns to the Florida club for the opening of its third 18-hole course, a Kyle Phillips design
What a difference a year makes. The new Apogee Club in Hobe Sound, Florida, has – in the twelve months since GCA’s last visit – been transformed from what was largely a building site to a fully-fledged superclub.
A new entrance and gatehouse, a huge bridge connecting the two primary areas of the property, guest villas lining newly laid roads, a vast practice area and a performance centre have all been completed in that time. And, not least, Apogee has also opened its third 18-hole golf course.
The club is not finished yet: a fourth golf course (a twelve-hole design by Tommy Fazio that, perhaps uniquely, consists entirely of short par fours) is growing in, while a second clubhouse, a wellness centre and more villas will all be up-and-running in the coming months. In an industry where developments are known to take decades to simply get off the ground, it has been remarkable to witness such a large and ambitious project progress at breakneck speed.
The club’s founders, Michael Pascucci, the developer behind Sebonack and The Bear’s Club, and Miami Dolphins owner Stephen Ross, are both well into their eighties and understandably not wanting to take their time. While moving rapidly, they are clearly not cutting corners, with impressive attention to every detail of the club.
“Both of them love the game of golf and they’ve done very well in business. They wanted it to be a legacy project,” said former USGA CEO Mike Davis, in a 2023 interview with GCA, shortly after the first course, designed by Gil Hanse and Jim Wagner, had opened. Alongside Fazio, Davis co-designed the second course and has been a driving force for the entire project, from site selection and permitting to construction supervision.
In the January 2025 issue of GCA, I highlighted the stark difference in character of the club’s first two courses – the Hanse/Wagner design lies gently on the land and emphasises the natural environment, while the Fazio/Davis layout involved enormous earthworks and is bold and brawny. The third course, designed by Kyle Phillips, is another distinctive and contrasting experience. Initially known as the West, South and North, respectively, the club has renamed its courses to be synonymous of Apogee: Paramount, Apex and Summit.The land for Phillips’ course, Summit, slopes gently away from the clubhouse site, meaning that most of the holes closest to the clubhouse – one, twelve to fourteen and eighteen – feature notable elevation change. Elsewhere, low-lying holes weave among pines, oaks, a cypress grove and specimen weeping fig and banyan trees in an environment that has been described as having an ‘Old Florida’ feel. This evokes a sense of the land being untouched, embracing and emphasising the nature of its setting. It is already clear that an abundance of birdlife and other creatures are happily finding a home on the course and its surrounds.
The par-three fifth is one of the lower lying holes that weave through a natural ‘Old Florida’ environment (Photo: Steve Szurlej)
While the general landscape flattens as you move away from the clubhouse, the entire course has substantial ground contour, particularly around the green complexes. This is apparent from the first hole, where a swale short right of the green must be negotiated on the approach, and abundantly clear by the second, a short par four with a rolling green complex, including a false front that will repel anything erring on the short side. It is difficult to hold the wide putting surface, with several mounds and hollows ready to career the ball away. For those seeking to reach the green in one, the best approach may be to try to carry two large bunkers to the left of the putting surface, as the ground beyond will steer the ball towards it.
The short par-four second plays to a shallow green with substantial contour (Photo: Steve Szurlej)
Phillips, his associate Mark Thawley and site representative David Smith have created a design that encourages the game to be played along the ground, and offers several ways to take on holes, particularly around the green. Working with superintendent Tony Nysse, they selected TifGrand turf for fairways (Apogee’s other courses feature TifTuf), which performs well at low mowing heights and means the course will play firm and fast. Its darker green colour also contributes to a significant visual contrast between Phillips’ layout and the others at Apogee.
Ground contour also allows the course to be set up for varying levels of difficulty. There are kind pin locations on most greens, but several more sinister placements too. On my visit, for example, the pin at the par-four ninth was set just above a ridge that snakes through the green, and at the par-three thirteenth it was tucked into a small section in the far right corner of the green, behind a deep bunker.
The thirteenth is the longest of the par threes and one of the outstanding holes on the property. It is in full view from the clubhouse (Phillips’ routing returns after twelve holes – unlike Apogee’s other courses, which both return after nine – giving members the option for six and twelve hole-rounds) and quite fearsome at 241 yards from the back tees.
The course returns to the clubhouse after the twelfth, giving Apogee members the option to play six, twelve or eighteen holes (Image: Kyle Phillips Golf Course Design)
As is evident throughout his course portfolio, Phillips is an expert in creating a landscape that looks like it has always been there. Few would realise that the land of the holes around the clubhouse has been created by man, so natural is its appearance. A deep valley cuts through the thirteenth, between tees and green. It is crossed by a distinctive stilted bridge, beyond which the approach area feeds balls towards the large and undulating putting surface. Getting close to the pin will require a good understanding of how the contours will impact the roll of the ball.
Looking back over the par-three thirteenth, which is 241 yards from the back tees (Photo: Steve Szurlej)
As with most holes on Phillips’ layout, there is a short, closely mown transition between the thirteenth green and the following tee, which sets up one of the most appealing drives on the course to a fairway below.
The fourteenth hole is home to one of the most memorable features of the course – a rolling boomerang of a double green that is shared with the sixteenth. Phillips has spent much of his career working outside the US and his work at Apogee shows an appreciation of the quirks of the courses of the UK and Ireland.
The approach to the fourteenth, the first of two holes that shares a long boomerang green (Photo: Steve Szurlej)
The same double green viewed from above the approach area of the sixteenth, with the par-three seventeenth visible in the background (Photo: Steve Szurlej)
“What you see in a lot of links and heathland golf courses are those little subtleties that you might not appreciate at first, and the more you play it, the more you learn and understand it,” says Phillips. “We wanted to create a course that reveals itself over time.”
Another example of this comes at the par-three seventeenth. Here, the green appears to sit between a huge dune on the left and a greenside bunker on the right. A marker post on top of the dune provides a clue that there is more than meets the eye. Once you arrive at the surface it becomes apparent that a large portion of the green wraps behind the dune (the marker post indicates the left edge of the green). On days where you cannot see a pin from the tee, it may be advisable for those without a high 200-yard draw in their armoury to tee it forward.
At the par-three seventeenth, a large dune hides the back-left portion of the green (Photo: Steve Szurlej)
While the course has several areas of exposed sand, such as the dune on the seventeenth, its primary identity comes from more formal bunkering, which again delivers a marked visual contrast to the other layouts at Apogee. The bunkers have steep grass faces with sand floors and in places have geometric styling; straight edges and sharp angles that give the course a classical feel. They are mostly shaped and angled to reveal the sand but occasionally, particularly around the greens, it is just a shadowy face that signals trouble lurking ahead.
Thawley explains that their inspiration book for the design included several images from Ganton and the Hotchkin course at Woodhall Spa, two of England’s finest layouts, often described as ‘inland links’. At the latter, it is not uncommon to find yourself standing in greenside bunkers and looking up at a putting surface above head height. The bunkers on Phillips’ course are generally not that deep; the groundwater level at Apogee is quite high and he did not want to raise the level of putting surfaces significantly above grade. On the twelfth and eighteenth holes, both par fives with greens set into the hillside below the clubhouse, they have been able to maximise bunker depth and it is on these holes where the parallels with the hazards at those English courses are strongest.
The twelfth is the only hole where water is on full display, as it plays alongside a lake that separates the course from the opening holes of the Fazio/Davis layout (as seen on the right hand side of the top image, which also shows the closing green on the left and the par-three thirteenth in the centre). Wetland areas in the lower-lying parts of the course do not factor into play, and a stream that cuts through the fourth and tough double dogleg par-five six will rarely be found. This makes for a nice departure from typical Florida golf.
After putting out on the closing green I could have immediately gone back for more. For someone who is often happiest playing just nine or twelve holes, that is high praise. To borrow from American sporting parlance, Apogee is three for three.