As the name suggests, Jonathan’s Landing Golf Club, in reimagining its Arthur Hills-designed Hills Course at Old Trail, drew inspiration from Gil Hanse’s work at Ohoopee Match Club and sought to bring a match play culture to its South Florida facility. The resulting course tops out at a sporty 6,500 yards from the back plates—similar to Ohoopee’s afternoon “Whiskey Routing”. There are no formalized tee boxes, allowing whoever wins the previous hole to pick the next teeing location. Completed during the Covid era, the Match Course represented the start of a remarkable surge of new construction and renovation work in the West Palm Beach area.

{{content-block-course-profile-jonathans-landing-match-at-old-trail-001}}

Take Note…

Three courses, two locations, lots of architects. The Match Course is one of a trio of courses under the Jonathan’s Landing banner. The club operates a town clubhouse in Jupiter, near the Village Course, which was designed by George Fazio in 1978, reworked by Tom Fazio in 2000, and will soon be reworked again by Beau Welling. The Old Trail facility is 20 minutes west of the Village Course and is devoted strictly to golf. This is where you’ll find the Match Course, along with the Medal Course, a Tom Fazio design recently redone by Kipp Schulties.

Pards. Gil Hanse’s design partner Jim Wagner moved to South Florida from Philadelphia in 2014, and the firm has begun to make major inroads in the region. In addition to the Match Course, Hanse and Wagner built The Park, a municipal course in West Palm Beach, and the West Course at Apogee Club, the first course at the new high-end private facility in Martin County. Both opened last year.

Tee tip. There’s a hidden tee box right off the ninth green for the 10th hole. It’s way more enjoyable to play from there than to walk back to the more commonly used teeing grounds.