RAT'S MOUTH. How did this picturesque town end up with such a surly name? As it turns out, it wasn’t a moniker given by pirates — but close. Eighteenth century Spanish sailors used the term boca raton to describe an inlet in Biscayne Bay. In the early 19th century, the name showed up on a cartograph to denote what is now Lake Boca Raton.

Despite its name, Boca Raton evolved into one of the dandiest getaways in Florida, a mini-apolis of three-story coconut palms and Mediterranean Revival structures sunbleached to a coquina white hue. Largely to thank for the city’s existence is Henry Flagler, whose Florida East Coast Railway kept heading south from Jacksonville during the early 20th century, eventually crossing the flats of the Florida Keys to reach Key West. But even with the technology of modern travel, Boca was still little more than farmland: to the west of town, on the Yamato colony farms, prickly stalks of pineapple popped through the earth in impossibly long rows.

One of the first places to establish Boca’s dandy reputation was Addison Mizner’s Cloister Inn. Built in 1926, the 100-room inn was modeled after a Spanish castle. It was the precursor to the Boca Raton Resort and Club, a name the property wouldn’t adopt for another sixty years. During those decades it was sold and re-sold, and with each new owner capitol was invested that allowed the property to upgrade and expand: $8 million in 1930, $14 million in 1969, $20 million in 1980. But it wasn’t until 1996, after a $165 million recapitalization, that the Boca Raton Resort and Club fully realized its potential. Today, you can count the state’s finest historic resorts on one hand. This resort is unquestionably one of them, and it shouldn’t take you to the ring finger to count it.

But in the world of Florida hospitality, there’s never much time to rest on your laurels. In the decade since the resort’s last overhaul, countless new hotels and resorts have popped up. So in 2004 Wayne Huizenga, the man behind Blockbuster Video, AutoNation, and several other brands that appear during television commercial breaks, sold the Boca Raton Resort and Club to an affiliate of investment firm The Blackstone Group. Over the past several years, another huge sum was poured into the resort. And now, once again, the resort is ready for its close-up.

Upon closer inspection, those unfamiliar with the resort will learn that it’s a golf resort in all but name. While it doesn’t have 72 or 90 holes like Innisbrook, PGA National or World Golf Village, all of which are within a three-hour drive, Boca has two championship golf courses — the Resort Course and the Country Club Course — that are in tiptop shape. And even though resorts like this one have forty things to keep you distracted, it seems the new ownership knows how much the golf is worth.

Mike Trinley is the head golf professional at the Boca Raton Resort and Club. He has been a Boca local since 1980, and joined the resort staff in 1993. “For any resort in this neck of the woods, golf is an amenity just like the spa or fitness center,” says the affable Trinley, who first picked up a club as a sophomore at Florida State University. “But we’re unique because of our membership. We have 3,500 club memberships, 500 of which are strictly for the golf.” When asked about what the new ownership means to the golf program, Trinley says, “The former owner [Wayne Huizenga] took golf pretty seriously, and it’s now coming to the forefront with the new owners.”

Unless you pay attention to the framed photos in the hallways around Trinley’s office, you may not know that golf history lives here. The Resort Course is one of the state’s most historic layouts. William Flynn, a product of the “Philadelphia school” of golf course design, created the Resort Course in 1926. Flynn was the man behind Shinnecock Hills in Southampton, New York, and Cherry Hills in Colorado, home of the legendary 1960 US Open where Palmer, Nicklaus and Hogan finished one, two, and nine on the leaderboard. Trinley is proud to add that the resort’s first club pro was Tommy Armour. One of those hallway pictures is of Armour sitting under an umbrella, drink in hand, giving a lesson to a student.

For more than 60 years, the Resort Course was the Only Course. Then in 1988 the property acquired the Boca Country Club, located seven miles northwest on Congress Road. Not only did it feature tennis courts, fitness center and dining facilities, but a Joe Lee design with water prominently in play on 16 of 18 holes.

Both courses have enjoyed upgrades over the past decade. In 1997, the Resort Course shut down for 10 months for a $6.5 million redesign handled by Gene Bates. Interestingly, it’s one of the few courses that lost yards on a redesign (the layout, which sits on a 90-acre footprint, shrunk from 6,800 yards to almost 6,300 yards). Two years later, the Country Club Course underwent a $1.5 million renovation of its tees and greens.

Perhaps it was the corroding salt air, or the speed at which chic moves in South Florida. In any case the resort, a 1,047-guestroom, 10-restaurant behemoth set on 356 beachfront acres, began losing its luster, being bested by newer hotels that offered bigger, sleeker, taller, better (one such hotel, the Setai in Miami Beach, dubbed itself a “six-star” property without any such distinction even existing). So in January, the resort announced a multi-million-dollar refurbishment of its interiors, common areas and restaurants. As if to honor Mizner, the supremely talented architect of whom Frank Lloyd Wright said, “Many architects had imagination but only Addison Mizner had the courage to let it out of the cage,” the resort hired an A-list who’s who of architects and designers with portfolios that include the Statue of Liberty, Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Mandarin Oriental New York, the Getty Museum in Los Angeles and boutique hotels from Boston and Beijing. Thierry Despont, the French-born l’enfant terrible of the architecture world who handled the restoration of the Statue of Liberty, revamped the resort’s lobby and retail area. His design incorporates sleek flying buttresses that bloom into the webbed glass ceiling, which invites the sunshine to cast dramatic shadows across the walls, floor, and royal blue furnishings. Despont also created Mizner’s Monkey Bar, a cozy cocktail spot where hand-painted primates sprawl in earth tones across the wall. The job of designing Cielo, the first US restaurant by Michelin-star-rated chef Angela Hartnett, went to the New York firm of Bentel and Bentel, which designed the Modern, MoMA’s polished metal eatery (it won a James Beard award for Best Restaurant Design in 2006). For the Old Homestead Steakhouse, which opened last summer, designer Tony Chi opted for neutral modern as opposed to masculine traditional: dramatic theater-style lighting, glassy and metallic surfaces. The new Private Residence Bungalows, fully furnished two-bedroom apartments, are the work of Alexandra Champalimaud. The Manhattan designer has handled projects both typical (the Carlyle and Angonquin in New York) and not-so-typical (she recently transformed the Charles Street Jail in Boston into the luxurious Liberty Hotel).

Guests of the hotel who consider themselves stick-and-ballers would be wise not to write off the Boca Resort’s two courses simply because they don’t stretch past 7,000 yards. “When players see the 6,253 on the Resort Course scorecard they sometimes snicker,” says Trinley. “The number looks very attackable, but that’s not quite the story here.” Trinley says the Resort Course’s third and 12th holes are great examples of beauty and beast: the two par 4s neighbor each other, and are split by a water feature that runs along the fairways and greens. Both have elevated tee boxes, which play back down to sea level then rise up again to elevated greens. The most talked about hole is 16, which Trinley calls “our diabolical par 5.” At 525 yards, it invites bombers to grip and rip, except players must be weary of the dogleg on this boomerang-shaped hole, not to mention the water hazard that splits to protect the green’s front and left side.

The Country Club Course, according to Trinley, is “traditional Florida golf.” That is to say: flat and wet. It is a 6,714-yard layout where water comes into play on all but two holes. Its signature hole is 18, a 516-yard island green par 5. Even for a hole as leggy as this, “the fun doesn’t start until you reach the green,” Trinley says. “It’s a huge green measuring about 6,500 square feet. This is by far the course’s most talked about hole.” The Country Club Course also neighbors the Dave Pelz Scoring Game School, established in 1995. “While the school isn’t part of the resort, we’re very fortunate to be associated with the guy at the forefront of golf instruction,” adds Trinley.

In this age of destination resorts, places where you check in and don’t want to check out, golf will continue to be packaged with every other amenity. It is the pillow menu, the pool butler, the fitness center, the WiFi compatibility in the lazy river. For some guests of the Boca Raton Resort and Club, who get easily distracted by the 10 restaurants, 32-slip marina and spa with 44 treatment rooms, the golf comes as something of a surprise. Like visiting a town called Rat’s Mouth and not finding the Jolly Roger anywhere in sight.