We just love it when city fathers agree that a historic old golf track must be preserved. Such enlightened thinking is rare these days among city fathers. Thus, when the mindful custodians of what is good and right in Winter Park, Fla. decided that their little municipal course must be saved and renovated, well, the cause of mashie and niblick was furthered, at least in our thinking.
No matter that Winter Park did not have hickory golf in mind when the renovation was authorised back in early 2016, it was enough that the 40-acre track off Old England Avenue in the middle of this town was to receive some TLC. The course is on the National Register of Historic Places and is part of the Florida Historic Golf Trail.
Bill Geisler, local resident and incoming president of the SoHG, was eager for the work to be done. Last March he took a visitor to see the old course and talked about his hope for a future hickory golf outing here. “I can see us playing gutties here,” he said, even as bulldozers pointed menacingly at innocent greens surrounded by moss-draped live oaks. “It’s going to be a good place.”
$1.2 million later and, by most reviews, it IS a good place, one made better by a light touch and simple measures. Architects Keith Rhebb and Riley Johns – Rhebb has experience working with Ben Crenshaw and Bill Coore, and Johns has worked with Tom Doak and Phil Mickelson – were brought in for the renovation. They enlarged some of the greens, relocated some tee boxes, added new bunkers, re-contoured the fairways and even created some varying elevations, a thing difficult to accomplish in mostly flat Florida. Greens and fairways are bermuda.
Some 100 trees were removed, but more than 100 newly planted native varieties were added in locations deemed better for the surrounding neighborhoods and more conducive to straight and narrow thinking off the tees.
“It was really cool to give back to the game of golf at Winter Park,” Johns told golfcoursearchitecture.net, in a September 2016 interview. “I learned golf on a municipal golf course, and I think many people do. It was great to have an opportunity to give back to the game in such a positive way.”
The pro shop, too, got its share of updating with fresh touches, a bit of remodeling, and improvements to the displays of the course’s golf history.
Winter Park is listed on the top 10 of Golf Advisor’s list of nationwide short courses to play. And the Golf Channel’s Matt Gianella put it on his list of “Places to Play.”
Winter Park is thought to be the second oldest in central Florida, dating to 1914. Old is old. Delray Beach claims that it is the oldest municipal course in the state, a Donald Ross design that opened in 1923. The Ocala Golf Club says that it opened its nine holes in 1912. And Ocean Trails, in Palm Beach, says it is the oldest, period, dating its genesis as a golfing land to 1896.
Gee, mister, what’s it all mean?
Nothing, really, unless you’re a dreary golf historian or a hickory golf editor of some kind. For the folks who show up to play at Winter Park, such thoughts are far from the mind. All you want is a little pull-cart, a few balls, and the leisure to walk the 2,500 yards from the tips. The green fee is less than $20. Well, you’ll want a few hickory golf clubs, too, if you want to do it right.
Geisler and the Florida Hickory Players know how to do it right. They held their first outing on the new layout on Nov. 20.
“It was perfect weather on a fantastically renovated course that played much like a links in Scotland,” Geisler says. “As P.G. Wodehouse once said, ‘it was a day that all of nature yelled fore.’ ”
Will Peterson took low gross honors with a sub-par 68 and new hickory golfer Chris Byrd carded a net score of 62. (“I hear his Callaway moderns are headed for the scrap heap,” Geisler says.) The group welcomed other newcomers, too – James Ryer, Wally Armstrong and Marci Likens.
The perfect outing to honor a beloved older municipal course in which historic value for a community was placed above development pressures.
Results of the Winter Park outing:
Will Peterson 68
Bill Geisler 74
Mike Stevens 76
Chris Byrd 77
James Ryer 80
Bernie Alessandrini 81
Wally Armstrong 82
Rich Grula 84
Scott Bowles 85
Shawn Pierson 87
Marci Likens 87
Jim Drotos 88
Steve Haigler 97
Mike Tracy 98
Rosemary Pabst 100
Low Gross
W Peterson 68
Low Net
C Byrd 62
Winter Park Golf Course
761 Old England Ave.
Winter Park, FL 32789
407-623-3339
www.winterparkcountryclub.com