Loblolly

Loblolly is a private, member-owned club and gated community in Hobe Sound, set between Alternate A1A and the Intracoastal Waterway at Peck Lake and bordered by parks and the Hobe Sound National Wildlife Refuge. The golf course is a Pete Dye and P.B. Dye design that opened in the late 1980s (the club scorecard says established 1987; Golf Digest and P.B. Dye list 1988). On a tight, triangular property about a mile from the ocean, the Dyes used sand dug from the retention ponds to build rolling fairways and dune ridges up to 40 feet high to hold greens and separate holes, a concept Golf Digest notes was later used at McArthur and other South Florida courses. Highlights include the double-dogleg 8th, the drivable par-4 13th, the Alps-style 14th, and the par-3 16th, known as Calamity, where shots that come up short and right fall into a bunker about 20 feet below the green. Jim Urbina, who worked for Dye in the 1980s, completed a full restoration in 2023 with new greens, tees, bunkers, grass and lake edging, and the course reopened to members that November. The par 72 plays 7,007 yards from the Gold tees (74.9 / 145). Golf Digest ranks Loblolly No. 25 in Florida for 2025-26. Membership is by invitation only, and the club also offers tennis and pickleball, a fitness center, spa, pools, dining, and a marina.

Loblolly community site plan from the club, showing all 18 holes, the club facility and driving range, and the Loblolly Bay marina on Peck Lake.

Conditioning scores highest of any category in Golf Digest panelist ratings (7.32 out of 10), and 2024 panelists described the course as sharp and clean after the 2023 Urbina restoration, which cleaned up the waste areas, opened sightlines, hid cart paths, and refined bunkers, green contours, runoffs and mounding. Urbina installed new greens and new grass cultivars throughout, and a 2024 golfer review notes TifEagle greens. Panelists also point to large, varied greens, wind in play on every hole, and few forced carries, with most hazards running along the sides of holes. Unpaved cart paths are part of the general area under the club's local rules.

7407 SE Hill Terrace, Hobe Sound, FL 33455