Every architect yearns to work on a great site, and almost all of them will tell you that good land is one of the top requirements for building a good golf course. Over the last 25 years, places like Bandon Dunes, Sand Valley and Barnbougle Dunes, in Tasmania—several of the most incredible sites to ever be developed for golf—have proven beyond doubt that exceptional land can lead to exceptional golf.

At The Grove XXIII, Michael Jordan’s new private course in South Florida, Bobby Weed didn’t have that luxury. The job there was to find out how to create exceptional golf—or at least exceptionally interesting golf—out of a flat, 227-acre citrus grove. But at this point in Weed’s career, over 40 years after he first interned for the late Pete Dye, a flat site is not an obstacle.