Originally designed by American Fred Bolton in the late 1980s, the Palm Course is a typical resort layout. Twenty years after the Palms first opened, Ross Watson was tasked with a more exacting challenge to the layout, and the 6,490-yard Palms now complements the Arnold Palmer-designed Pines Course at Divine Bay.

The greens complex has received a lot of attention during the course's upgrades, with refurbished putting surfaces now more contoured and jagged greenside bunkers adding significantly to the challenge. Both nines begin with powerful, water-protected par fives, while the remaining par three on the 14th hole at The Palms also requires golfers to work around the water as the fairway veers first to the right and then to the left towards a green guarded by six bunkers.