Accolades

• Golf Digest: “Best New Courses – 2014”

Project Details

Following Esplanade Golf & Country Club at Lakewood Ranch, C.W. Golf Architecture was selected by homebuilder and developer Taylor Morrison to execute another master plan and course design for Esplanade Golf & Country Club at Naples – a new 1,800-acre residential, master-planned community featuring an 18-hole golf course on Florida’s Gulf Coast. The private, 1,200+ single family home community also includes tennis courts, a fitness center, pool, clubhouse, and culinary center among other amenities.

Formerly an old hunting preserve, the Naples location was a tougher site to build on than its sister course in Lakewood Ranch. This course was cut from pines and rocky soil with the need to blast through the subsurface of coral rock which was a time-consuming process. Both Esplanade courses were the first residential development golf courses to be built since the housing bust of 2008, earning their esteemed place on Golf Digest’s “Best New Courses – 2014” list.

Wilczynski’s design principles, centered around the simple themes of playability, fun and beauty, are what give the golf course its charm and appeal. Along with the variety of holes and sense of rhythm from one hole to the next, the golf experience is also enhanced by the beauty of the meticulous landscaping that pulls it all together. Chris personally flagged every tree, shrub, and landscape bed at each hole.

Course Highlights

• Just shy of 6,900 yards, the course is set within 1,800 acres of spacious land including 170 acres of lakes and over 1,000 acres of wetlands and preserves.
• A practice complex that consists of a putting green, short game facility, and an aqua range.
• Wide fairways, shallow, grass-faced bunkers, and lateral water hazards.
• Generous and modestly contoured greens with open approaches.
• Short, risk-and-reward par 4’s (#5, #10, #14).
• Along the western and northern boundaries of the golf course is an environmental preservation area featuring specially designed birding zones; a man-made wetland stream borders holes #2 through #5.
• 170 acres of lakes which enhance community water quality and provide flood protection areas.