The Golf Club at the Boca Raton Debuts a Course Reimagined for the Strategic Golfer, Honoring its 100-Year Legacy

Photo: Hole 9, courtesy of The Boca Raton

Reopening in late fall 2026, the resort’s redesigned golf course pays homage to the strategic angles and ground-game options of its Donald Ross and William Flynn origins.

BOCA RATON, Fla. – The Golf Club at The Boca Raton—South Florida’s iconic private club and resort—reopens in late fall 2026 following a comprehensive $25 million reimagination of its 18-hole course led by architect Brian Silva. Silva specializes in restoring the angles, contours and ground-game options that defined the work of famed golf course designer Donald Ross and other Golden Age of golf design greats. The project also delivers a new practice facility, 53 rebuilt bunkers, a fully modern irrigation system, and two new places to eat in Greg’s on the Green and Greg’s Grab & Go. 

The Course’s Design Lineage

Renowned American architect Addison Mizner commissioned Donald Ross to build the property’s first course, which opened in 1926 alongside the Ritz Carlton Cloister Inn with its holes split across El Camino Real. When the Mizner Development Corporation went bankrupt the following year, Clarence Geist acquired the property and brought in Howard Toomey and William Flynn of Philadelphia, whose two eighteen-hole courses opened in January 1930. 

What followed was a century of updating. Robert Trent Jones did minor work in the 1950s, Joe Lee renovated extensively in 1988, Gene Bates rebuilt substantially in 1997, and a further modernization came in 2016. Silva’s reimagination is drawn from the course’s earliest design principles, recovering the strategic ideas that shaped the original. 

“I’m taking the work of Ross, and Raynor, and Flynn, and other such architects, and transforming them into the modern game,” Silva says. “The history here almost infuses you. Sam Snead, and Tommy Armour, and Mizner, and on and on and on.”

Both men held the professional’s post here, Armour from 1929 to 1955 and Snead from 1956 to 1969, forty consecutive years covered by a three-time major champion and the winner of 82 PGA Tour events. The property remains one of 51 courses on the Florida Historic Golf Trail.

The clearest evidence of Silva’s method sits at the closing hole. Its island green, an idea that belonged to the era that built it, is gone. In its place stands a Cape*, a template older than The Club itself, on which the golfer decides how much water to take on from the tee. 

How It Plays

Silva is direct that the reimagined course asks more of a golfer in places. Club members returning to it will find “greater challenges on some shots than the previous course had,” he says. What has changed is the nature of the demand. Where the modernizations added length and punishment, Silva has rebuilt the course around decisions.

“Angles are very important in golf course design,” he says. “It really opened up the possibility of making a course for all caliber of players and making a course for the contemporary game.”

Two features carry that idea. Kick slopes now feed well-judged shots toward the hole, producing what Silva calls, “results that go beyond their ability.” And the greens are ringed by close-cut chipping areas rather than heavy rough, so a miss becomes a puzzle of shot selection instead of a penalty stroke. It is the way Golden Age courses were built to be played, inviting members to play every day instead of a field** once a year. 

"It was important to us to elevate the golf course, honor the legendary golfers and designers who shaped its history, and reimagine it for the modern game and the 21st-century golfer," says President & CEO of The Boca Raton Daniel Hostettler.

What Was Rebuilt

The scope covers all 53 bunkers, every lake on the property, new cart paths throughout, a new pump station and a fully modern irrigation system. The course has been re-grassed throughout, with TIF 3D Bermudagrass on the greens and Bimini Bermudagrass across the fairways, tees and rough. 

The practice facility is being rebuilt to the same specification as the course itself, so a ball struck on the range behaves the way it will on the eighteenth. Greens complexes are being added to the driving range, giving golfers contoured targets and surrounds to play into rather than open distance. The putting green, chipping green, chipping areas and practice bunker are being reconstructed to match course conditions, re-grassed with the same turf. 

Silva has been on site every week of construction, an unusual commitment in an industry that often works at a distance. “It’s really the greatest part of my job, that the course evolves in front of my face,” he says. “I see the rough grading on a hole three or four times and can make little adjustments.” 

Photo: Hole 12, courtesy of The Boca Raton

Gathering Places 

Just steps from the first tee at The Boca Raton's reimagined golf course is the new Greg's on the Green, which brings a fresh spin on the classic clubhouse, thanks to its creative takes on familiar après-golf dishes. Open daily for lunch, Greg's on the Green is built for dynamic days on the course: Fuel up before your round, then settle in after for something chilled and delicious. The covered outdoor terrace overlooks the fairways, equally suited for a pre-game strategy session or a post-round toast with your foursome and a cold beer or crafted cocktail. The menu keeps it elevated-casual—think wagyu burgers, a refined take on nachos, hearty sandwiches and quesadillas, plus soups and salads for lighter appetites—while the big screens keep every tournament and rivalry in view. Whether you shot the round of your life or have a few creative scorecard explanations, Greg's on the Green is where you get to tell your version of the events at the course's new favorite 19th hole.

Stroll up between shots to Greg's Grab & Go—a quick, casual, and dangerously convenient pit stop during your 18 holes of golf. Tucked just off Hole 3 in a sleek, refurbished vintage Airstream, Greg's Grab & Go makes it easy to swing by for breakfast bites, where fresh-baked bagels and pastries await players on the course. Once the morning turns to afternoon, the all-day menu takes over, featuring savory snacks and sweet treats, plus a rotating selection of crowd-pleasers. Foods and select drinks come mini-sized and portable for easy traversing before you return to the back nine. And if you're looking to toast a birdie (or drown a bogey), artisan crafted ready-to-drink cocktails are available for purchase.

Both take their name from Gregarious Greg, the illustrated flamingo character that appears at The Flamingo Grill. 

The Golf Club at The Boca Raton reopens in late fall 2026. Play is exclusive to members of The Boca Raton Club, their guests, and resort guests. “Our members have waited for this,” says Hostettler. “We look forward to welcoming them back to the course.”

Footnotes

*“Cape” is a hole on which a diagonal hazard invites the golfer to bite off as much as they dare.

**“Field” is golf’s term for the whole set of competitors in a tournament, as in “a field of 156.”

 
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