Course Comparisons / Florida
Sandhill Crane Golf Club vs. PGA National Match Course: The Palm Beach Gardens Choice
Palm Beach Gardens gives a golfer two opposite answers to the same question, and they sit in the same town. One is a municipal course routed through nature preserve land that the city spent $2.5 million redesigning. The other is a resort course with no official par and no tee markers, where the winner of each hole picks where the next one is played from. Sandhill Crane Golf Club vs. the PGA National Match Course is not really a choice between two golf courses. It is a choice between two ideas of what a round is for.
Sandhill Crane: the city's course, taken seriously
Sandhill Crane is Palm Beach Gardens' municipal, rebranded from the site's earlier identity in the Eastpointe West era and redesigned by Dusenberry Design in 2013 for $2.5 million. Roy Case is the architect of record on the original 1992 layout. The course plays par 72 at 6,504 yards, routed through nature preserve land, and the property added The Nest in 2023, an 18 hole par 54 course by Nicklaus Design, which tells you the city is investing in this place as a golf facility and not just mowing a muni.
Municipal golf at 6,504 yards through a preserve is a specific pleasure. The setting does not feel like the edge of a development, the redesign money shows in a layout that was rethought rather than patched, and the access is the public's access, in the same town where resort golf sets the price tone. Readers comparing the local field should start with our Palm Beach Gardens ranking, where these two sit in the same list and the contrast gets even sharper.
The Nest matters to this comparison more than a short course usually would. An 18 hole par 54 course by Nicklaus Design, opened in 2023 on the municipal property, means Sandhill Crane is no longer just a regulation course with a range. It is a place a family or a beginner can start, a place a good player can walk in the evening, and a facility the city keeps building on a decade after the redesign money. Municipal golf in Florida survives on exactly that kind of layering. One course serves one audience. A regulation course through a preserve plus a proper short course serves a town.
The Match: golf with the scorecard removed
Andy Staples built the Match Course at PGA National in 2021 as a match play concept, paired with The Staple short course on the property. The rules of the place are the design. No official par. No tee markers. The winner of each hole chooses the tee location for the next hole. Drivable holes and template ideas run through the routing, and if your group wants to strip it all the way down, the Pelican tees offer an all par 3 version of the course at about 1,823 yards.
This is genuinely radical for resort golf, which usually sells yardage books and signature holes. The Match sells the match itself. A stronger player who wins a hole and then drags the tee back to make a point will learn something about his friends. A group that keeps it friendly will play a different course than a group out for blood, on the same ground, on the same afternoon. No other course in this comparison, or in the full Florida state ranking, changes that much depending on who shows up.
The verdict
On the golf first: Sandhill Crane is the better conventional test, 18 holes of par 72 golf through preserve land with a redesign behind it. On the day: the Match gives a group of friends the more memorable afternoon, because the format manufactures stories a stroke play round does not. On access and value: the municipal wins for a local or a visitor playing more than once, while the Match is resort access, priced and packaged accordingly.
So the verdict splits the way honest verdicts should. Play Sandhill Crane if you want a real round, a score you can compare with last month's, and the best public value in town. Play the Match if your group has a running grudge, a free afternoon and no interest in what anyone shot. The loser of this comparison still deserves its due: the Match is the most original idea at PGA National in years, and originality is rare enough in Florida resort golf to be worth the trip on its own. But a town is lucky to have a muni this cared for, and luck like that wins. Sandhill Crane, by a nose, with the Match as the first alternate in Florida golf.