Info
Hotel Royal Palm Golf Course
Closed - 6 Holes Executive
SE 3rd Street
Miami, Florida
Miami-Dade County
33131
Logo
Award for Best Picture
FloridaMemory.com [Women walking the Hotel Royal Palm Golf Course- circa 1905 (based on height of palm trees) with Biscayne Bay in the background]
Notes
The visionary of the Hotel Royal Palm Golf Course was Henry Flagler.
Jan 12, 1898-April 1909: The Hotel Royal Palm Golf Course - 6 holes, par 18, 778 yards (estimated), designed by Alex Finlay.
Course Area
Estimated Layout and Scorecard
There is only 1 picture of the golf course (shown above) and based on written clues, here is a plausible layout for the course:
Street View of where the 1st Tee was
FloridaMemory.com [A guest teeing off on the 1st hole of the Hotel Royal Palm Golf Course- 1899]
https://floridamemory.com/items/show/31042
Google Maps
Bing Maps
History
Henry Flagler, who opened up Florida to the rest of the United States with his Florida East Coast Railroad, built several fancy hotels along the the railway line. For Flagler to extend his railroad to Miami, he received as part of his compensation, a large swath of land in what is now downtown Miami from Julia Tuttle. In 1896, Flagler started building the Hotel Royal Palm, and opened it on January 16, 1897. During the off-season, Flagler was interested in drawing more wealthy tourists to Florida so he hired Scotsman Alex Finlay to layout several golf courses, including the Hotel Royal Palm Golf Course. Flagler installed a 6-hole golf course on the grounds of his hotel, in the area known as Royal Palm Park.
The golf course was ready for Hotel Royal Palm's second tourist season when it opened on January 12, 1898. The course had sand tees and greens and rough fairways. The first tee was located beside the front door to the hotel. 3 of the holes wrapped themselves around the First Presbyterian church which was located on the north side of Royal Palm Park.
Flagler realized that the short 6-hole course would not be totally satisfactory to the high society golfing guests of the Hotel Royal Palm and proceeded to build for his hotel guests, "Golf Grounds" (a 9-hole course) which opened on March 9, 1899. The need to use Royal Palm Park for other uses, made the life of Hotel Royal Palm Golf Course rather short. In the summer of 1909, the hotel abolished the golf course to replace it with tennis courts, a baseball field and park area as this picture from 1922 confirms:
