The Bears Club

Jack Nicklaus designed The Bear's Club in 1999 on a piece of Jupiter, Florida coastal land that he assembled specifically as a personal home club — a place to play out of after he moved his Florida base from North Palm Beach. The course is one of the most-preserved late-career Nicklaus routings, and the design carries his mature-era signature of generous fairway corridors, large green complexes, and strategic decisions that depend on angle of approach more than length. Nicklaus reportedly tested every architectural decision against his own preferred shot-shape — left-to-right tee balls, drawing approaches, full-club iron play — and the result is a course that rewards exactly the game Nicklaus played at his peak.

The course plays around 7,295 yards par 72 from the championship markers, with paspalum turf and a slope in the upper 130s. The Bear's Club is built on Florida sand subsoil that drains quickly after summer thunderstorms, and the fairways play firm year-round. The fifteenth hole is a 555-yard par-5 with water cutting the second-shot landing zone; the eighteenth, a 472-yard par-4 with a green set behind a natural pond, is the routing's most-discussed closing hole. The clubhouse and the practice facility were built specifically to Nicklaus's preferred specifications, which is part of why the membership describes the property as a Nicklaus monument as much as a country club.

The Bear's Club is private and access is members and accompanied guests only. The membership is national in composition — Florida second-home owners and seasonal residents from across the country — and the hospitality model is built around Nicklaus's personal presence at the club through the winter season. Caddies are available; the routing is walkable but most rounds use carts given the Florida heat.

South Florida climate keeps The Bear's Club playable year-round, with the prime window in November through April. Summer humidity and afternoon thunderstorms compress mid-day rounds through June, July, August, and September. The Atlantic-influenced marine breeze gives the property reliable afternoon cooling, and the paspalum turf handles the Florida heat better than the bermuda alternatives.