The city-owned course in Port Orange, Fla. closed in May for a $750,000 project that included course improvements designed to end massive drainage problems. The clubhouse restaurant was also remodeled and 74 new golf cars were purchased.
City-owned Cypress Head Golf Course, owned by the city of Port Orange, Fla., was scheduled to reopen with a grand opening on October 3o, following six months of renovations to its golf course’s greens, tees, bunkers and clubhouse, The Daytona Beach (Fla.) News-Journal reported.
In addition to the course work, Cypress Head, which is managed by KemperSports, was also set to unveil renovations made to its clubhouse and restaurant, the News-Journal reported.
“We’ve upgraded and remodeled the restaurant. We’ve given it a pretty different look than what it had,” said Jim Brittain who, with partners Tom and Jody Smith, leases the restaurant from the city.
Brittain said food offerings in the updated restaurant will now be a combination of both menus from the restaurateurs’ other two businesses in the area—Neptune’s Sports Pub in Daytona Beach, Fla. and Mango Sun Beachside Cafe in Daytona Beach Shores, Fla.
The golf course remodel promises that the formerly flood-prone course will no longer suffer the massive drainage problems that crippled it after heavy rains, the News-Journal reported. Those issues led to an April decision by the Port Orange City Council to spend up to $750,000 on the renovations, which began May 1.
Cypress Head’s General Manager, Bob Duquette, told the News-Journal that the improvements to the course, which opened in 1992, were overdue. Duquette was named GM at Cypress Head earlier this year, after serving as the head golf professional at Palm Harbor Golf Course in Palm Coast, Fla., another KemperSports property.
“Prior to the [driving] range restructuring, every time it rained we’d have to shut down for several days,” Duquette said. Now, he added, rain storms will only stand to disrupt play for “half a day, tops.”
In addition to building up the driving range to aid drainage, Duquette said, all of the Cypress Head greens have been redone and planted with a more heat-tolerant Bermuda grass. The course also has new bunkers.
“It’s a great Mike Dasher and Arthur Hills design. It’s a challenging golf course,” Duquette added, pointing out how some of the new bunker areas have been restructured and widened. That widening has led the Florida State Golf Association to re-rate the golf course’s difficulty level, the News-Journal reported.
The grand opening ceremony was scheduled to include a ribbon-cutting for the course, followed by a nine-hole golf scramble for 120 players, then another ribbon-cutting for the clubhouse, the News-Journal reported.
The opening-day tournament already had a waiting list prior to October 30, Reggie Hunter, Director of Sales and Marketing, told the News-Journal.
In addition to the restructuring, 74 new golf carts have been purchased and a full-time beverage cart operator has been added, the News-Journal reported.
All of the new work to the golf course and clubhouse building have led the city to hike the prices, the News-Journal reported. “There’s going to be a slight increase due to the fact that we invested a lot of money into the golf course itself,” Duquette said.
The golf course offers access through the Cypress Pass, an annual pass sold to the general public, and the Legacy Pass, which combines the former “Annual Pass” and “Founders Club Pass” and for which about 50 current residents, who have purchased passes since 1992, are eligible, the News-Journal reported.
“The [Legacy] Pass itself will be offered to Port Orange residents at a better price,” Duquette said, “But we are also going to open up the Cypress Pass to anyone else who wants it,” he added, noting that the course intends to increase its program offerings, especially for youth.
Despite the increase in fees, when asked about how future bookings for the upgraded play area were running, Duquette told the News-Journal that the course has events lined up through the new year.
“We’ve had a lot of interest,” he said. “People here, they’ve missed their golf course.”
The current range of daily fees at Cypress Head GC, the News-Journal reported, is between $18 and $41 per day, plus tax, and including the greens fee, surcharge, and cart fee. The annual Cypress Pass for a Port Orange resident is $1,650 for a single player and $2,565 for double players, and does not include tax, cart fee or surcharge.
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