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A previous home of the PGA Tour's flagship championship is about to look very different.
As reported in the St. Johns Citizen, members of Sawgrass Country Club in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla., have voted to approve a "Capital Improvements Plan" that will include expanding the club's fitness center, modernizing its beach club, refreshing its tennis center and completely overhauling its golf course, with architects Dana Fry and Jason Straka overseeing design work. The estimated price tag: $55 million.
Originally founded in 1974, Sawgrass C.C. hosted the Players Championship from 1977 through 1981, prior to the construction of neighboring TPC Sawgrass, which has hosted the event since 1982. It is a 27-hole club; the original East and West nines were laid out by Arnold Palmer and Ed Seay, with the South nine added by Seay in 1985.
Even before the latest capital improvement project announcement, the last 15 years have seen the club spend dozens of millions of dollars on other capital improvements. Palmer and Seay protege Robert Walker completed a multi-million-dollar renovation of its three nines between 2013 and 2015. From 2018 through 2021 came another, more than $25 million improvement project to update the 67,000-square-foot clubhouse. The latest approved overhaul brings the club over $80 million in capital improvement commitments in just the last five years.
Eye-popping golf course renovation costs continue
These numbers speak to multiple ongoing trends in golf, particularly the rising cost of building and rebuilding golf courses in the post-pandemic area. While the game's general popularity is near an all-time high, costs for most materials needed to build and maintain golf courses have doubled, tripled and even quadrupled in the 2020s alone. Labor costs have also increased, further inflating overall planned budgets. While golf's current bull run has created membership waiting lists and escalating initiation fees and dues, it is difficult to avoid wondering where the breaking point might be.
Sawgrass Country Club is hardly alone in spending huge sums to continue offering members a top-tier club experience. Several clubs in the Palm Beaches have spent upwards of $50 million on clubhouse renovations alone in recent years. The transformation of The Park West Palm, a privately-funded enterprise that has resulted in South Florida's best public golf experience, eclipsed that number. In 2024, the nearby Country Club at Mirasol unveiled plans for a reported $82-million renovation to take place in stages over the rest of the decade, including complete renovations of its two golf courses, Sunset and Sunrise, in 2028 and 2029, respectively. And at Boca West, planned updates to its clubhouses and 72 holes of golf in the coming years are estimated to tally upwards of $100 million.
As at Sawgrass, Fry and Straka are at the center of Boca West's golf plans. They have been contracted to work on all four of its courses in the coming years. The firm has a heritage of producing eye-catching work, going back to the vaunted Calusa Pines Golf Club, which Fry and Dr. Michael Hurdzan created out of flat Florida nothingness nearly a quarter-century ago. Fry and Straka's overhaul of Union League National Golf Club in New Jersey is one of the most intense rebuilds of the decade to date, and their upcoming Miakka Golf Club in rural Sarasota County, Fla. promises massive scale and features as well.
Economic conditions have unlocked significant capital for attention-grabbing golf in recent years. How long will it continue?
More golf course news and notes
FORMER TPC UNDER THREAT? - Virginia Beach National Golf Club, a Pete Dye design formerly known as TPC Virginia Beach, is being floated for sale by the city, with potential development a major concern for its patrons. [LINK: 13 News Now]
9 FEWER HOLES IN PHOENIX? - The Westin Kierland Resort & Spa's 27 holes might be 18 soon. [LINK: AZCentral.com]
GEORGE CLIFTON: 1953-2025 - One of modern golf's most quietly prolific architects, Clifton passed away at the age of 72. A partner in the Clifton, Ezell & Clifton firm alongside his late father, Lloyd (d. 2013), and Kenny Ezell, he worked on the dozens of courses across The Villages, central Florida's vast retirement community. [LINK: Obituary]
GCSAA RECOGNIZIES 'ENVIRONMENTAL LEADERS' - The Golf Course Superintendents Association of America honored members from Connecticut to California for their stewardship of the lands on which their courses sit. [LINK: TurfNet.com]
GOLF-ADJACENT - The streamer's first-ever 'Netflix House' location in Pennsylvania includes themed experiences around hit shows like Stranger Things and Bridgerton as well as...a 9-hole mini-golf course. [LINK: NPR.org]
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