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SARASOTA, Fla. - "I'm known for not knowing the difference between Donald Ross and Diana Ross," admitted city commissioner Kyle Battie.
But despite not being much of a golfer himself, he could see the value of restoring Bobby Jones Golf Club, a proud public golf place in his city. The project, a decade in the making and a more than $20 million investment, had attained his support, along with his fellow local politicians.
"This is a rebirth, a reincarnation, a renaissance," he concluded.
A Munaissance, perhaps.
Bobby Jones Golf Club dates back to 1926, when Donald Ross routed 18 holes across a flat, 300-acre tract. The year after it opened, the city invited Bobby Jones to participate in an exhibition match, and then renamed the course in Jones' honor.
The following decades were uneven, at best, for the course's fortunes. A further 18 holes got wedged in among Ross' original holes. Years of benign neglect caused rounds to decline. I visited in March of 2020 and found the place thoroughly tired, no longer of its namesake's dignified reputation. The people I interviewed were disappointed that the course had gotten so far away from its heyday, and were pessimistic about the grandiose plans for the place, then merely proposals wading through red tape, coming to fruition.
Weeks later, the COVID-19 pandemic seemingly nailed the coffin shut on the course. While many courses thrived, it remained shut to golfers and converted to general green space.
What a difference three years makes.
In the interval, a groundswell of community and political support coalesced, culminating with Bobby Jones Golf Club's second act beginning December 16th - one that pairs golf with general local recreation in a way that other municipalities should look to emulate.
Community-owned golf continues to improve significantly, with towns, cities and counties recognizing the value of the game as a worthwhile public good. The city of Sarasota became the latest to affirm the value of municipal golf when it reopened its own historic course, named for one of the early icons of the game.
As with many historic municipal golf reclamation projects, the new Bobby Jones Golf Club is the old Bobby Jones Golf Club. Armed with a detailed set of Ross (that's Donald, not Diana) plans from the Tufts Archives in Pinehurst, architect Richard Mandell led a team that painstakingly restored each hole, with only a couple of adjustments needed for routing and drainage purposes.
Any admirer of Ross' work will enjoy B.J.G.C.'s double-loop routing that constantly changes direction, as well as the spare but tactically relevant bunkering and clever fairway earthworks that can direct running shots toward - or away from - the target. The openness of the land lends the course a roomy feel. There's some room to spray the ball off the tee, but successful recovery will require both skill and sense. The course's medium-large greens are toward the milder end of the Ross spectrum, contour-wise, but still have plenty of intrigue. Management of the golf course is now in the hands of Indigo Sports, a Troon Golf company with several daily-fee and municipal facilities in its portfolio.
Amid the roster of local politicians, Mandell also spoke during the course's opening ceremony. He was rightly emotional about the project. "As crazy as it sounds," he said, "I actually enjoyed this up and down path that we’ve been on.”
Ups and downs: sounds just like a round of golf, doesn't it?
“My primary goal was to make you guys happy and give you a golf course that you deserve,” Mandell said.
Mission accomplished. Long neglected, Bobby Jones has the chance to be one of Florida's best municipal golf courses, and one of its best values as well, with rates topping out just under $100 for visitors, with a generous 40% discount for Sarasota residents. A clubhouse will be built in the next couple of years that will preside over the course and its brand-new, expansive practice facility, while just down the street, a 9-hole short course that can be routed multiple ways for different daily looks, will open in mid-2024. It is named for John Gillespie, a Scot who was one of Sarasota's first mayors, and who first brought golf to the city.
But that's not the whole story of this project. Keep in mind that Bobby Jones Golf Club is down 18 holes from its previous complement. That may sound like a loss to some, but the decommissioning of mediocre golf in favor of 100-plus acres of public parkland that includes miles of walking trails is a win for the community. The city placed the entire property in easement, meaning it will never be developed.
In addition to functioning as permanent green space, the Bobby Jones property will filter billions of gallons of stormwater each year and help recharge the four aquifers that sit beneath Sarasota. Golfer or not, practically every local citizen will benefit from this project. It's a shining example of how golf can help a community.
BOBBY JONES GOLF CLUB
— Tim Gavrich (@TimGavrich) December 16, 2023
Sarasota, Fla.
Donald Ross, 1926
$99
Course #605
Richard Mandell’s faithful Ross restoration brings stately city park golf back to Sarasota in the form of a highly playable classic with mellow greens & plenty of eccentric fairway mounding. The #munaissance! pic.twitter.com/SALAq9HEpP
Other Sarasota golf notes
Sarasota and the neighboring Lakewood Ranch mega-development is a popular corridor for snowbirds and winter golf travelers. The premier place to stay and play is Longboat Key Club, where guests of The Resort at Longboat Key Club can make 24-hour advanced tee times on the property's 45 holes of fun and spectacularly maintained golf ($250). The Harbourside property has 27 holes, including the Ron Garl-designed Blue nine, which grants some beautiful glimpses of Sarasota Bay. The White and Red nines sit on a tapering envelope of property and comprise a core 18 holes - no homes leering over fairways, which helps one swing away. A couple of miles up the beach, Longboat Key's Links on Longboat sits on a skinny, triangular piece of property beside the resort. Longboat Key director of agronomy John Reilly and his team have the wall-to-wall Paspalum turf courses in tremendous shape year-round.
One relative newcomer to the Sarasota area's public golf scene is Esplanade at Azario Lakewood Ranch ($139). The course is a key amenity for a large Taylor Morrison-developed residential community and was laid out by Chris Wilczynski, a Michigan native who worked for Arthur Hills for many years before hanging his own shingle in architecture. Wilcynski's keen understanding of what makes golf courses both playable and interesting shines at Azario, where there is plenty of room to play, and the fun, boldly contoured greens make for engaging short-game tests on every hole. Azario is semi-private for now; once the community and club reach a critical mass of members, it will become a private club.
Check out these other Sarasota-area golf courses
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