Trump International Golf Club, West Palm Beach, Fla. : The Donald’s new digs – Brief Article
Ron Whitten
Donald Trump thinks big. Modest dreams don’t create Taj Mahal casinos or Trump towers, and they don’t provide much bravado when you’re renegotiating billion-dollar loans. So when The Donald decided he wanted a golf course, he envisioned not just fairways and greens, but Elysian fields.
Architect Jim Fazio’s crew churned 3 million cubic yards of earth, dug lakes 55 feet deep and piled soil 58 feet high to create mountains out of an old trash dump. They transplanted 5,000 mature trees, including more than 50 huge live oaks. Recirculating streams flow from waterfalls down faux cliffs. The course plays uphill, downhill and sidehill, with 18 distinctive holes, in particular its four gambling par 5s.
If this $40 million bombshell sounds vaguely familiar, then you’ve heard of Shadow Creek, the ultraprivate Las Vegas showplace created a decade ago (for $37 million) by Steve Wynn, Trump’s archrival in the casino game. To add to the intrigue, Fazio’s younger brother Tom designed it.
Trump International is not a Shadow Creek clone. If anything, Jim Fazio’s design draws more upon nearby Jupiter Hills, 74th among America’s 100 Greatest as ranked by Golf Digest and built in the early 1970s by Jim’s uncle (and mentor) George Fazio. On the back nine, a massive “superdune” looks much like a feature at nearby Emerald Dunes, a project Jim started but Tom completed.
Trump intends his dream course to serve 300 members. Early recruits paid a mere $100,000 initiation fee. Today, it costs three times as much to join.
Captions
Trump International Golf Club, West Palm Beach, Florida
Donald Trump’s Mambo No. 5
A little bit of Shadow Creek on the side
Vegas-style cascades flowing down manmade boulders behind the green on the 539-yd.. par-5 third are part of $3 million worth of waterscapes
A concrete bunker they did hide
With 5-foot thick walls, the WW II ammo bunker was too hard to remove, so they buried it and put the back tee of the fourth hole atop it.
The look of Jupiter Hills is everywhere
The rolling topography, hilltop greens, Bunkers recessed into slopes and cattail ponds are all derivative of Florida’s fabulous Jupiter Hills Club.
A little part of Emerald Dunes is over there
The 40-foot high “superdune”, like one at Emerald Dunes down the highway, supports the tee boxes of the 550-yd. par-5 15th and 455 yd.. par-4 18th..
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