New golf resort in Florida starts construction with famous designer

Golf course architects Tom Doak and Angela Moser, along with developer Michael Keiser, are off and running at one of Keiser’s three projects currently being built in three different states. Five greens have been constructed at Old Shores in the Florida Panhandle, and preview play on as many as 12 of the holes could commence as soon as October. 

Keiser and his brother, Chris, own the popular Sand Valley Resort in Wisconsin, and they are the sons of Bandon Dunes Golf Resort developer Mike Keiser. In addition to Old Shores, Michael also is developing Rodeo Dunes in Colorado and Wild Spring Dunes in Texas. Both of those resort and residential developments are farther along than Old Shores, which sits some half an hour north of Panama City and south of Interstate 10.

But Moser got into the ground at Old Shores in November, and Keiser is thrilled with the progress on what eventually could be an expansive project that includes multiple courses and several walking-based villages with estate homes, cottages, a hotel, restaurants, shops and more. 

The first course at Old Shores – so named because the Gulf and its sugar-white sand beaches used to reach all the way to this stretch of Northwest Florida – is being designed by Doak with Moser as lead associate. That’s the same duo that laid out Pinehurst No. 10, a course that opened in 2024 and has climbed to No. 15 on the Golfweek’s Best ranking of the top resort courses in the United States. Moser worked on multiple courses around the world with Doak, one of the game’s most decorated modern course architects, before Pinehurst. 

“I’m really excited for her,” Keiser said. “Pinehurst (No. 10) was great. I also know the work that she did with Tom for Rosappena at St. Patrick’s Links (a highly rated layout in Ireland), and I think that was really exceptional. I’ve talked to Tom about what she did at Te Arai (at the highly rated North Course in New Zealand), and I’ve talked to Bill Coore because she helped Bill out for a little bit on his course (South Course at Te Arai, also highly rated). I’m really excited for her, and just philosophically, we’re really aligned as we walk through the holes. 

“I was down there a few weeks ago with her just talking through what we’re imagining, what she’s imagining. She’s phenomenal. And her work on the routing – you know how good Tom is at routing golf courses, and she came up and her recommendations completely changed the final stretch of golf holes on the golf course. And it’s an incredible finish, thanks to her. So I’m excited and have full confidence in her abilities.”

Keiser said that as design and construction continue, the plans are to start grassing the first set of finished holes in May. Twelve holes could be available as a playable loop in October, and a full grand opening is planned for fall of 2027.

It all seems to be flying quickly, Keiser said. With the courses at Sand Valley being covered in fescue grass, he’s learning how quickly the Bermuda grasses used in the South can be installed and grown in. It’s similar to Wild Spring Dunes in Texas, where Keiser was able to offer preview play in late 2025 while the full opening is planned for this September. Rodeo Dunes in Colorado is slated to open fully in the spring of 2027.

“As somebody who is used to fescue and two-year to three-year grow-ins, it’s a bit insane for me,” Keiser said, “but also exciting.”

As an old pine plantation was cleared for Old Shores, Keiser grew even more thrilled about the Florida project. Florida golf is too often defined by flat ground with pushup greens and drainage ponds providing the greatest intrigue. At Old Shores, though, the sandy terrain is much more varied. 

“The first time I saw it, it was on a topo app from the neighboring site,” Keiser said. “I was drawn by the topography. Not only did it seem really interesting, it’s so unusual. Tom Doak has been talking about this a lot recently. He doesn’t use the word unusual. I think he says dynamic. It’s as dynamic a site as he’s seen in a long time. It’s such a different topography. So that struck me on paper, and I confirmed that on the ground. Its natural beauty has always captivated me. 

“But in recent months and really over the last two years, after we’ve removed the pine plantation, we’ve been growing in this prairie that just gets prettier and prettier. And then in the last three or four months, we’ve been mowing out the fairway corridors. And I saw this at Rodeo Dunes: When you go from 4-foot grass to essentially soil, all the little details emerge in the ground. And as I saw the little stuff in the ground, it has really exceeded any expectations that I had even six months ago on the quality of the site.”

Doak and Moser’s design will come first, but the plans keeps stretching out from there. Brian Schneider, a longtime Doak lead associate who completed his first original co-design at the highly rated Old Barnwell in South Carolina that opened in 2023, will design the second course at Old Shores. Keiser said the first phase of development at Old Shores includes those two public-access, 18-hole resort courses plus a par-3 course, a nine-hole private course that will accept some resort play and a 12-hole layout similar to The Commons, a community-based, non-traditional course in development at the heart of Sand Valley. 

In time, Keiser said, there are plans for Old Shores to expand from there to include more courses and a second village. Keiser drew inspiration for the villages from the great walking towns of Scotland, where a car might be parked and forgotten. With 4,000 acres owned by Keiser and a partner who wishes to remain anonymous, and with that partner owning another 60,000 acres, there’s plenty of room for Old Shores to stretch out.

“We spent a couple years planning the bones for the villages, and we went through I don’t know how many iterations,” Keiser said. “I always say, let’s measure 50 times and cut once, right? And we’re not on any schedule. So we’re going to start designing this, and we’ll move forward when we’re really excited about it, even if that slows the project down. So that’s what we did. We spent a lot of time on the village design, and it’s pretty cool.”

Founding memberships are available at Old Shores for $115,000, Keiser said, and the first offering of 21 estate homesites are available starting at $1.3 million with owners able to design custom retreats that include as many as eight bedrooms. The homes at Old Shores will be constructed around gardens, greens and shared gathering spaces. Amenities will include an entry plaza, a variety of restaurants, a community pool and multiple communal areas. 

But it’s the golf that will draw the most eyeballs. The Keiser family has established high expectations with home run after home run in golf course development, and Michael is thrilled to be building with Doak for the fourth time, especially with this first course at Old Shores on a very unexpected piece of ground. 

“The site for Old Shores is not at all what people will visualize when they think of Florida,” Doak said in a media release from Old Shores. “There is about 40 feet of elevation change from high to low on our site, and even more on the site for the second course, with big sweeping hills providing a variety of stances. Then there are the sinkholes, which are unlike anything I’ve seen on a golf course; in some cases there are abrupt banks 30 to 50 feet deep, and the largest of them, Long Lake, is a dry pond that is something like 50 acres in size.”

Keiser is a bit of a golf nut, in a great way. He loves to talk courses and dreams of building more, and a round of golf with him includes continuous conversation about what he likes with various holes and layouts. He learned from his father, Mike – who redefined resort golf in the U.S. with Bandon Dunes in Oregon – that the golf must always come first. Such is the case at Old Shores.

“It’s all happening really fast,” Michael said, “and I just really want to play the course.”

This article originally appeared on Golfweek: Old Shores in Florida underway with famous course designer

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