Saltleaf Golf Preserve

When the Raptor Bay course opened outside Naples in the early 2000s, it was notable for the lack of formal bunkering, an inventive idea that was ahead of its time (there were sandscapes along the edges of the holes but no fairway or greenside bunkers). The look of the course was sleek, with wall-to-wall fairway cut and holes that moved through dense wetlands and coastal pine forests with only the resort high rises in sight. In 2023, the entire property was redeveloped and rebranded as the public/resort Saltleaf Golf Preserve: nine holes of the original course were closed for alternate use, and the eastern side of the land was expanded to replace the lost golf. Raymond Floyd, the original course architect, returned to oversee the restructuring of the remaining holes and the addition of seven new holes in a previously unused parcel of 70 acres farther to the east. The bunkerless concept remains, mostly—the course is primarily short grass with sand and pine straw buffers, but there at least two freestanding bunkers. But the sensuousness of the contoured fairways and greens offset by the isolated nature of the holes hasn’t been lost.