Old Marsh Golf Club, written by Pete Dye for Florida Golf Magazine

Описание: http://www.floridagolfmagazine.com/FG...
Old Marsh Golf Club in Palm Beach Gardens, The Environmental Challenge that became an Audubon Sanctuary

In 1986 developer Bob Whitley hired me to design the golf course at Old Marsh Golf Club in Palm Beach Gardens. http://oldmarshgolf.com

The proposed site for the course was a 440-acre piece of property enclosed within 40,000 acres owned by the MacArthur Foundation. Despite the many anticipated construction problems, I knew we had discovered something very special there.

I also knew that fitting 18 holes into this environmentally protected area would be a real challenge, but the result turned out to be a spectacular golf course set in the middle of a wildlife sanctuary. As an experienced golfer, I had always known that a significant part of the enjoyment of the game often comes from the player's awareness of the beauty of the golf course and the abundant wildlife wandering freely there. But first glance at the proposed site made me wonder whether a roaring lion might appear from deep in the high grass, since the marshland's rich vegetation and abundant species of wildlife reminded me of Africa.

Old Marsh Golf Club became certified as an Audubon Cooperative Sanctuary in 1998 and the natural settings on the course are among the game's most spectacular with some tees on islands in the marsh and flocks of snowy egrets congregating in the trees every afternoon. Old Marsh couldn't be more ideal or special. Not only do untouchable wetlands edge the club on three sides, but 20 percent of the community's 456 acres are marshland, so the wildlife found there is beguiling.

The course at Old Marsh will always have an extra-special meaning for me. Just behind the fifth green there is a bronze bell that is used to signal the players behind that the group in front has completed play. On the post that mounts the bell is a plaque with an inscription paying tribute to the man who taught me all I really needed to know about the game of golf. It reads, "Ring the bell for my dad, Paul F. Dye, who loved his family and everything about the game of golf."
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