By Tim Turpen, Head Golf Professional & General Manager
Finding a course that tests your skills without punishing your scorecard is harder than it sounds. Add in the hassle of booking tee times weeks in advance, and golf starts feeling less like recreation and more like work.
Serious golfers want to play on their terms and actually improve their game, but that combination rarely exists.
I've spent years watching golfers navigate this challenge. The best golf experiences happen when strategic design meets accessibility, and when clubs prioritize the player's schedule over their own systems. That's what we've built here.
The most distinctive design feature you'll run into appears early in your round: back-to-back par 5s on holes five and six.
When Arthur Hills first designed this course in 1989, he surveyed the land and started laying out where everything would go. Uniquely, we have about 1,500 yards in a straight line along the northwest edge of the property: a perfect place to put back-to-back par 5s. That doesn't happen very often in course design.
These holes do more than stand out on a scorecard. The first par 5, number five, is the golfer’s best chance for a birdie with a generous fairway and no water hazards. The green is well defended, but is accepting of a well played shot. The relief from number five passes quickly with the tee shot on number six. The fairway is generously wide, but well bunkered on the left side and a small stream on the right. Once the golfer has navigated the tee shot and second shot, your third shot into the green is your reward at the end—very beautiful, but one of the toughest shots on the golf course.
The golf course, renovated by Reese Jones in 2022, builds difficulty as you progress through each hole. Tee shots are challenging with water present, but only three holes demand forced carries over water, so golfers have options from the tee.
The green complexes are very well designed with openings in the front of the green, but defended with bunkers and collection areas on the sides. Rees Jones did a great job of designing the green complexes to be challenging, but not impossible. Bunkers and collection areas are designed at reasonable depths to provide multiple recovery options. The green surfaces have subtle breaks and movement to keep the golfer thinking until the ball finds the hole.
We also accommodate different skill levels through tee selection. We've got six different sets of tees. The most forward set is right at 5,000 yards, and the longest is just over 7,200 yards. In my experience, that's what dictates a golfer's experience—having the right set of tees to play from.
Strategy matters most when you can actually practice, which requires consistent time on the course—and that’s the problem with many clubs in the Palm Beach area.
We're one of the few clubs with no tee times. A lot of clubs in South Florida were built as planned communities. That means multiple golf courses and sometimes 1,500 to 2,000 members competing for time on the golf course. Getting tee times sometimes requires a three, five, or even seven day notice.
Who has time for that? Especially if you’re flying in for the weekend or wanting to play whenever the mood strikes.
Our structure means golfers who want to work on their game have the space and flexibility to do so. We have a lot of members go out in the afternoons just by themselves or with one other member because they want to play, improve their game, and enjoy the beautiful 20,000-acre nature preserve backdrop next door.
A challenging, enjoyable golf course with easy access due to no tee times is what golf at The Preserve provides. Our membership structure ensures you can show up and play whenever inspiration strikes.