Bobby Jones Golf Club and Nature Park tees off after years of planning
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Almost the entirety of Sarasota’s City Hall swung by 1000 Circus Blvd. on Friday for a tee time seven years in the making.
An opening ceremony on Friday marked the complete renovation of the Bobby Jones Golf Club and Nature Park and the grounds are now open to the public. The event drew officials from the city, Sarasota County and the state legislature to deliver remarks while around 200 members of the public took in the new course and nature park.
With a complete redesign — including 27 holes and the nature park across the property’s more than 300 acres — Bobby Jones may look brand new. But its history goes back almost a century.
Founded in 1926, the original Bobby Jones course spanned 18 holes and served as a city highlight. The course expanded and added more holes through the decades, but the need for renovations became clear as time went on, and residents began to champion potential improvements.
Vice Mayor Jen Ahearn-Koch was elected to the Sarasota City Commission in 2017. At the time, she said, the future of Bobby Jones was the most popular topic city-wide.
“There’s nothing that the community talked about more than the future of this golf course,” Ahearn-Koch said.
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The long-standing dream started to take shape in 2016 when the city recruited Richard Mandell, a course architect based in Chicago and North Carolina, to design Bobby Jones. With a $20 million loan, the dream inched closer to reality, culminating in a groundbreaking ceremony in March 2022 and Friday’s official opening.
Mandell’s design is in the style of pioneering course architect Donald Ross, who emphasized variety and accessibility to introduce new players to the sport. Bobby Jones includes six boxes at each hole to accommodate players of varying skill.
As a municipal course, Mandell said Bobby Jones is meant to invite the entire community to play — not just those with a country club membership.
“I want everyone — everybody, doesn’t matter who you are — to have a fun and enjoyable experience,” he said. “It will challenge the golfers who are looking for a challenge, no matter what your talent level is.”
Mandell’s renovations aren’t just notable for the course design but for new environmental elements as well. Ninety acres of the Bobby Jones grounds make up the nature park, where patrons can walk and bike along repurposed golf cart paths to take in the surrounding flora and fauna.
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As a significant floodplain in the Phillippi Creek watershed, the course’s design is cognizant of the pivotal role it plays in the local ecosystem and the flow of water. Twenty acres of newly installed wetlands will filter around 900 pounds of nitrogen a year, and parts of the course — including raised fairways and a surrounding canal — were designed for stormwater retention and water conservation.
The innovations earned Mandell an Environmental Excellence Award from The American Society of Golf Course Architecture as well as almost $2 million in grant money from the Southwest Florida Water Management District and the Florida Department of Environmental Protection.
The addition of a conservation easement — a commitment to preserve certain lands — by the City Commission also afforded Bobby Jones a partnership with the Conservation Foundation of the Gulf Coast. The foundation will monitor the easement and ensure the land’s permanent preservation from development.
Christine Johnson, the foundation’s president, said the design of Bobby Jones allows it to actively aid in conservation efforts.
“This golf and nature park has become a working environmental engine,” Johnson said. “It is an oasis for wildlife and a place where water can be naturally cleansed.”
In the future, the county plans to connect the golf club and 17th Street Park as a Legacy Trail connector to Nathan Benderson Park. But at present, city officials are excited for the milestone Bobby Jones presents on its own.
Though some residents expressed much fervor for a Bobby Jones renovation, Mayor Liz Alpert recalled that the idea was met with just as much skepticism in the project’s early stages. Some believed it to be a fool’s errand and a waste of money, Alpert said, and the roadblocks throughout almost a decade of debate and deliberation felt insurmountable at times.
Ultimately, Alpert said, Bobby Jones’ complete 300 acres are proof of the city’s perseverance.
“In the end, we remained persistent, and we remained with our eye on the ball,” Alpert said. “Our greatest wish is that everyone in this generation and the coming generations will be able to enjoy this green space.”
Contact Herald-Tribune Growth and Development Reporter Heather Bushman at hbushman@gannett.com. Follow her on Twitter @hmb_1013.
This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: Bobby Jones Golf Club officially opens
