The Plantation At Ponte Vedra Beach: Plantation

From Golf Digest Architecture Editor emeritus Ron Whitten:

Just a few exits down Highway A1A from TPC Sawgrass, and catty-corner from Sawgrass Country Club, is The Plantation of Ponte Vedra, a lesser known but very successful 1985 Arnold Palmer residential development design. Architect Bob Walker had worked on the original design back when he was a senior designer for Palmer, and Harrison Minchew did some touch-ups in 2006 back when he, too, was a Palmer senior architect.

Both Walker and Minchew still live and work in the Ponte Vedra Beach area, but to handle an upgrade to its Palmer course, the club selected golf architect Greg Letsche, a former Nicklaus design associate, now the chief architect for Ernie Els. Nothing wrong with going with the competition, so to speak. It simply indicates to me that the membership wanted a fresh set of eyes on the place instead of those schooled under Palmer.

Letsche used a light touch to enhance the Palmer layout. He rebuilt the greens, softening many contours (bold greens were a Palmer trademark of the 1980s), smoothed out numerous mounds on several holes, added a few strategic bunkers while removing excessive ones elsewhere (like those totally surrounding the par-3 16th green) and added new forward tees.

He retained The Plantation’s famous island tee on the par-3 12th (the tee almost a parody of TPC Sawgrass’s island green up the road), but removed the peninsula bunker at the green that had poked into a pond. By the way, The Plantation has its own island green, on the short par-4 15th, a target big enough that it also includes three bunkers.