The Stuart, Fla., property closed 10 months ago to give the 22-year-old course a facelift, but plans were delayed in September when Hurricane Irma hit. The property opted to expand the project’s scope and rearrange the signature 16th hole as a peninsula green.
The Florida Club in Stuart, Fla., re-opens March 10 after closing more than 10 months ago to give the 22-year-old course a major face-lift, the St. Lucie County, Fla., TC Palm reported.
Owner Thomas Stark poured a lot of money into the course and clubhouse—no figure has been given—but they didn’t do it on the cheap, TC Palm reported.
“I can’t wait for the golfers’ response when they come off the course,” said Florida Club’s head professional, Brendan Murphy. “I expect them to be ecstatic. This course is set up to (PGA) Tour standards. You can’t play a course like this unless you’re in a private club.”
Greens fees are $82 for opening day, which comes at the height of the tourist season, and the tee sheet is filling up. In two weeks, Murphy points out, the price will be below $70 and eventually drop below $50 in the summer, TC Palm reported.
“Once the golfers play it, they’ll understand why the rate structure is what it is,” Murphy said. “The greens are rolling over an 11 and there’s no ounce of grain on them. You don’t have to roll your ball in the fairway to find enough grass under it.”
The original plan was to shut down the course in May, re-grass the fairways and greens with Celebration and Tiftdwarf, then re-open in October or November. Hurricane Irma had other ideas when she rolled through the Treasure Coast in early September, TC Palm reported.
Stark and General Manager Ray Barnes then took a mulligan of sorts. Instead of rushing to get the course finished by the start of the tourist season, they expanded the scope of the project to re-arrange the signature 16th hole, making it a peninsula green, and give the rest of the course enough time for the grasses to grow in, TC Palm reported.
Unusually cold weather in late December and January also played a role in the delayed opening. It’s not often a golf course re-opens near the end of the lucrative tourist season, but Stark believed he had no other choice, TC Palm reported.
“We didn’t want to be open if the golf course wasn’t perfect,” said Murphy, who was hired in January from The Breakers in Palm Beach. “It would have been a bigger miss for us if we opened up and the course wasn’t where we wanted it to be.”
A limited number of summer memberships will be sold that will allow for discounted play. The Florida Club is the only course designed by Dick Gray, who is better known as one of the nation’s top course superintendents (Gray works at PGA Golf Club in nearby Port St. Lucie), TC Palm reported.
“It was far away my best,” Gray joked. “I was working at Loblolly and I wanted to design a golf course. It wasn’t a bucket-list item, but I enjoyed the creativity of doing something like that. I could have done more, but I would have been competing against guys who were a lot better at it than I was.”
Gray remembers the course originally was going to be called the Michigan Players Club, but the owners went for the local name and made the course’s surroundings as indigenous as possible. They built large greens and tees to make the course enjoyable. “We wanted you to shoot your second-best score on it, so you would come back and shoot your best,” Gray said.
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