The Everglades Club

The Everglades Club, a social and golf club in Palm Beach, began life as something else: when construction started in July 1918 it was to be the Touchstone Convalescent Club, a hospital for soldiers wounded in World War I. The war ended a few months later, and Paris Singer, an heir to the Singer sewing-machine fortune, opened it instead as a private club on January 25, 1919, with buildings by Addison Mizner. Singer hired Seth Raynor to lay out nine holes behind the clubhouse, which opened in 1920. Raynor was brought back for a second nine in 1925 but died early in 1926 before finishing it, and Charles Banks completed the eighteen in 1927, reworking a couple of the original holes. After new owners took over the club in 1936, William Langford worked on the course in keeping with Raynor's style. Brian Silva renovated it in the early 2000s, when the nines were flipped, and Steve Smyers has since reworked the bunkers, greens, tees and drainage. The course keeps Raynor's template holes, including a Punchbowl, a Biarritz and a Road Hole, and its back tees are named for Paris Singer.