When the curtain is pulled back later this year on the new Links Course at Bear Lakes Country Club in South Florida, it promises to be the most celebrated restoration in Palm Beach County in quite some time. That is saying a lot in an area dotted with more golf courses than any other part of the country.
Opened in 1984 in West Palm Beach, Bear Lakes has 36 holes all designed by Jack Nicklaus. The Links half of Bear Lakes is being rebuilt by the team of Davis Love III, Mark Love and Scot Sherman of Love Golf Design. That group is not simply rebuilding greens, tees, fairways and bunkers on the 42-year-old Nicklaus design; they are reimagining the layout from the ground up in what the design firm’s namesake describes as a layout inspired by the likes of Charles Blair Macdonald and Seth Raynor from golf course architecture’s golden age.
The Links Course historically has been a compliment to the Lakes layout at Bear Lakes, a Jack Nicklaus Signature Design. When the club began discussing the idea of a renovation, members and administration envisioned a Scottish links-style layout. Some architects pitched what amounted to a simple update to the Links Course with little change to the overall design, while others advocated for a complete deviation from that complimentary role.
Knowing that recreating a true Scottish links experience in sub-tropical South Florida would be a challenge, it was the Love Design team who came to the table with something unique.
“Davis refers to it as an American links style design. Very much they’re trying to capture that,” said Bear lakes superintendent Mike Rienzi. “We’re not a templated kind of design. However, from a theming perspective, I think National Golf Links and Chicago Golf Club have always been the inspiration.”
It is no mistake the project, which started earlier this year and is scheduled for completion in November, is getting so much attention.
In the shadows of downtown West Palm Beach, Bear Lakes has a sophisticated clientele of mostly low-handicap players. Very low. Installing a design from golf’s yesteryear into the hubbub of Palm Beach County, where there is a golf course for every 10,000 residents, is not going unnoticed.
The project made the list of the 13 Notable Renovation Projects to Track in 2026 by Golf Pass. That list also includes the likes of The Old Course at St. Andrews and Seminole Golf Club, the famed Donald Ross design in Juno Beach, Florida.
“We know what we wanted to accomplish. We know what everyone expected,” Rienzi said. “The communication channels were clear. It has been a seamless transition.”
With more than 30 years of experience as a superintendent, Rienzi came to Bear Lakes five years ago with general manager Chris Hull and director of golf Jimmy Gascoigne. The trio had worked together at Grand Harbor in Vero Beach before traveling south along Florida’s east coast to West Palm Beach.
“Leadership here had the foresight to say ‘Guess what?’ We’ve watched project after project get caught up in summertime rains, not make their scheduled opening, not get grown-in. So we started early.”
Having an experienced leadership team together has been invaluable during such a high-profile renovation project.
“I think it would be very hard for three random guys to go into a club like this, you know, from three different tangents. It would take time,” Rienzi said. “So what it allowed us to do was initiate a turnaround very, very rapidly. And, you know, the GM is not worrying about having to check on what I’m doing on the golf course. We’re not having to worry about the communications because all those things are established.
“I would probably describe the three of us kinda like, three brothers.”
Due to the competitive climate in golf-heavy South Florida where there are about 160 golf courses in Palm Beach County alone, renovation projects are common. They also have to be done quickly because many projects do not begin until after the snow bird season is over.
Just as South Florida’s balmy weather affected the design plans of the Bear Lakes renovation, it also influenced the project’s schedule. The threat of Florida’s infamous summer rainy season has fouled more than one renovation project, and the Bear Lakes leadership team had enough experience with each other to come with a united front to present a different plan.
“South Florida has gotten themselves into it. Everybody down here has to do a renovation, and you can’t start until mid-April or early May, and then you have to be done in November,” Rienzi said.
“Leadership here had the foresight to say ‘Guess what?’ We’ve watched project after project get caught up in summertime rains, not make their scheduled opening, not get grown-in. So we started early.”
Since the planning stages began the project has been unlike anything Rienzi has been associated with before, and the team from St. Simons Island, Georgia-based Love Design has taken complete ownership, overseeing the process every step of the way with someone on site every week.
“It’s been every week,” he said. “So, between the three of them, sometimes I get all three of them. Sometimes it’s two of them.
“It’s been a little bit more challenging for Davis lately because he has been trying to play a little bit more. But there hasn’t been a week that I haven’t had at least two of them, if not all three of them, and they’re multi-day events. You know, they’re not that far. You know? They’re five from me. So that was another part of it.
“They said it up front, and they’re backing it up. When we have something for them to look at, they are here.”
