Bobby Jones Golf Club

In 1886, the year John Hamilton Gillespie brought golf to Sarasota, his family's Florida Mortgage and Investment Company drained the saw-grass pond east of town; the Friends of Bobby Jones Golf Club, quoting an 1887 engineering report, place that work and its main ditch, today's Phillippi Creek Main B Canal, on the land the course now occupies. In 1925 the City Commission adopted an ordinance issuing bonds to buy about 290 acres for a park and municipal golf course, and the city hired Donald Ross. Louis G. Lancaster, Ringling Bank president and golf committee chairman, led the effort.

Ross worked with his associate J. B. McGovern and his engineer and draftsman Walter Irving Johnson Jr. The 1925 plan is labelled as drawn by Johnson at Pinehurst. Ross's handwritten field notes, kept at the Tufts Archives, went to Johnson in a 1925 letter after a site visit and specify each hole's mounds, sand and green, down to how high many greens are built up. The letter asks the firm to send "enlarged greens plans" to Lancaster at the bank. Ross's card totals 6,240 yards.

Gillespie's old course closed on June 1, 1926, and the Sarasota Municipal Golf Course opened its first nine on June 5, when Mayor Everett Bacon cut the ribbons. The second nine opened on September 30, 1926. On February 13, 1927 Bobby Jones dedicated the course, now named for him, playing with Lancaster against Watts Gunn and Jim Senter; Jones shot 73.

Holes to Know

From the Red tees (6,714 yards) the course is par 71: 3,505 yards and par 36 out, 3,209 yards and par 35 in. There are four par 3s (the 3rd, 8th, 13th and 16th), eleven par 4s and three par 5s (the 4th, 5th and 11th), with the 4th and 5th back to back. On Ross's card the 4th was a 372-yard par 4, on a par-70 course.

The 516-yard 5th from the Red tees, stroke index 15, plays straight from a tee beside a canal, with a pond along the left from about 350 yards. Its green, about 48 yards deep, is the deepest on the course; Ross's notes call for a long, narrow green raised four feet at the back.

The 236-yard 8th from the Red tees, stroke index 9, is the longest par 3; Ross's card, and today's Ross tee, have it at 191 yards. Bunkers cut into mounds at both front corners of the green, and the canal runs behind it on the right.

The 478-yard 15th from the Red tees, stroke index 2, is the longest par 4: straight beside a multi-lane road, with a pond on the right early, a canal crossing about 125 to 155 yards short of the green, and no bunkers.

The 339-yard 17th from the Red tees, stroke index 18, is the shortest par 4. The drive crosses a canal about 100 to 130 yards out with a lake on the left, and the hole turns right to the smallest green on the course, with sand at its front right, left side and back left, as Ross's notes describe.

The 412-yard 18th from the Red tees, stroke index 4, bends right about 255 yards out past two bunkers on the right. Two diagonal mound complexes cross the fairway about 40 and 70 yards short of a green with bunkers at its front left and right.

Ross's Design Here

On this flat, wet site Ross's notes rely on mounds rather than sand. Hole after hole asks for "large undulating mounds" two to five feet high, graded so they can be mowed, and for "large rough mounds similar to sand dunes from 4 to 6 ft high planted with wire grass", often with a small sand pocket in the face. Mandell said the plan shows "lots of mounding in the middle of the fairways", and that Ross used mounds as hazards because bunkers on low ground would be hard to drain. The restored mounds are the most visible Ross feature on the course today.

His general specifications set the rest of the character. Tees were to be large and irregular, "raised only enough to give a distinct view of any natural or artificial hazards"; Mandell built them one to two feet high. An existing "Old Canal" crossing the 2nd, 4th, 5th and 7th was to be graded into long grass swales, and all grading was to have long, easy slopes that a fairway mower could cut.

The greens were built up from the flat ground, each to its own specification. The 5th rises four feet at the back and 18 inches at the front; the 3rd has two terraces a foot apart; the 6th has a pot bunker four feet deep off one corner; the 13th's sand sits at the back "at edge of canal". Mandell kept those relative heights: where Ross put a green four feet above the fairway, it still is, although every tee, green and landing area now sits above the floodplain. Ross's notes for the 10th also call for rough mounds between the 10th and 18th fairways, a ridge Mandell singles out for its effect on the tee shot on both holes.

Historical Significance

The municipal course is one of two Ross designs in Sarasota from the mid-1920s, alongside the private Whitfield Estates course, now Sara Bay Country Club. Johnny Revolta won the Sarasota Open in 1935, one of his five wins that year, and the Friends timeline places that event here. In January 1940 and 1941 the Senior PGA Championship, in its third and fourth playings after two years at Augusta National, was held on this course together with Sarasota Bay Country Club. Otto Hackbarth won in 1940 after tying Jock Hutchison and beating him in a second 18-hole playoff; Jack Burke Sr. won in 1941. The LPGA's Sarasota Open came here in 1955, won by Betty Jameson, and 1956, won by Betsy Rawls. The Friends timeline also records that George Jacobus, the club's general manager and professional, became the PGA's first American-born president in 1933.

After the restoration the Florida Historic Golf Trail, run by the state's Division of Historical Resources, reported the course second on Golf Digest's list of the best new or remodeled affordable courses for 2024.

Changes Since Ross

The complex grew around the Ross 18. Robert Bruce Harris added a nine in 1952, and Roy Anderson another later in the 1960s, after which the Ross course was split: each of its nines became the back nine of a hybrid 18, later called the British and American courses. Lane Marshall's executive nine, the Gillespie, followed in 1977, making 45 holes. In 1987 Ron Garl renovated the American course for irrigation and drainage, significantly revising the Ross 10th through 18th; on the 18th a 1987 pond took the left half of Ross's fairway. The facility later fell into disrepair and closed during the COVID-19 pandemic.

On January 10, 2022 the City Commission voted to restore the Ross 18, build a short course and clubhouse, and place the roughly 300-acre property under a conservation easement with the Conservation Foundation of the Gulf Coast. Mandell's work began with a ground-breaking on March 4, 2022, and the course reopened with a grand reopening on December 15, 2023. He restored the Ross routing as one 18 with all but two greens in their original places, painted the bunker lines from Ross's plan, rebuilt the mounds, raised the playing surfaces with soil dug from new wetlands, and built the front-nine canal Ross had only sketched, running behind the 8th green, the 5th tee and the 4th green. On the 18th he restored Ross's back tee, the diagonal mounds and the green's wing bunkers, removed the 1987 pond, and added two bunkers on the right. About 90 acres became a public nature park, the project won the American Society of Golf Course Architects' Environmental Excellence Award, and the rebuilt Gillespie nine opened in May 2024.

Uncertainties

• Par: the Friends' transcription of Ross's card, and their timeline, give the 1925 course as par 70, with the 4th a par 4; the Florida Historic Golf Trail calls the 1926 course par 71. This listing follows the card.

• Roy Anderson's nine is dated 1965 by Golf Course Architecture and 1967 by the Friends timeline, which also dates the split of the Ross 18 to 1967.

• The two greens Mandell could not restore in place are not named in the sources found.

Sources & Notes

1. Friends of Bobby Jones Golf Club, Ross Initiative, https://friendsofbobbyjonesgolfclub.org/rossinitiative (Ross's 1925 card and hole-by-hole Field Notes, courtesy Tufts Archives: general specifications, mounds, greens, 4th as par 4, par 70).

2. Friends of Bobby Jones Golf Club, The Ross Field Notes, https://friendsofbobbyjonesgolfclub.org/fieldnotes (1925 letter to W. I. Johnson Jr., McGovern, Lancaster, enlarged greens plans, dedication match).

3. Friends of Bobby Jones Golf Club, Timeline 1886-Present, https://friendsofbobbyjonesgolfclub.org/timeline (1886 drainage, 1926 openings, 1927 dedication, 1935, 1940-41, 1955-56 events, Jacobus, 1952-1987 changes).

4. Florida Department of State, Florida Historic Golf Trail: Bobby Jones Golf Club, https://floridahistoricgolftrail.com/courses/bobby-jones-golf-club (1925 bond ordinance and 290 acres, June 5, 1926 opening, February 1927 dedication, Jones's 73, Golf Digest 2024 affordable ranking).

5. Florida Department of State, press release (2016), https://dos.fl.gov/communications/press-releases/2016/bobby-jones-golf-club-featured-as-florida-historic-golf-trail-course-of-the-month/ (Ross 18 split into the back nines of the American and British courses).

6. Andrew Warfield, Sarasota Observer, Bobby Jones course architect reflects on why 'Sarasota has me for life', November 19, 2023, https://www.yourobserver.com/news/2023/nov/19/bobby-jones-architect-reflects-sarasota-for-life/ (Mandell on green heights, canal route, bunker lines, Ross tees, tee heights, mounding).

7. Golf Course Architecture, Richard Mandell to restore Ross features at Bobby Jones GC, January 4, 2019, https://www.golfcoursearchitecture.net/content/richard-mandell-to-restore-ross-features-at-bobby-jones-gc (Harris 1952, Anderson 1965, Garl 1987, all but two greens in place).

8. Golf Course Architecture, City of Sarasota breaks ground on Bobby Jones renovation, March 9, 2022, https://www.golfcoursearchitecture.net/content/city-of-sarasota-breaks-ground-on-bobby-jones-renovation (March 4, 2022 ground-breaking).

9. Golf Course Architecture, Sarasota's Bobby Jones club reopens after renovation, December 15, 2023, https://www.golfcoursearchitecture.net/content/sarasotas-bobby-jones-club-reopens-after-renovation (reopening, tees, nature park, ASGCA award).

10. Scott Kauffman, Golf Business (NGCOA), Sarasota's City-Owned Bobby Jones Golf Club is Reborn, July/August 2024, https://www.ngcoa.org/golf-business-magazine/2024/july-august/sarasota-bobby-jones-golf-club (Gillespie opening May 2024, 10/18 ridge).

11. M. James Ward, Golf Today, Grade "A" Architecture: Bobby Jones Golf Club, April 24, 2024, https://golftoday.co.uk/grade-a-architecture-bobby-jones-golf-club/ (restoration of the 18th; 1987 pond).

12. Bobby Jones Golf Club, scorecard (October 2023), https://www.bobbyjonesgolfclub.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/9662/2025/08/bobby-jones-scorecard-w-handicaps.pdf (tee yardages, Ross tees).

13. Bobby Jones Golf Club, Our Rich History, https://www.bobbyjonesgolfclub.com/our-rich-history/ (January 10, 2022 vote, conservation easement, pandemic closure).

14. Wikipedia, Senior PGA Championship, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Senior_PGA_Championship (1940-41 venues and winners).

15. Wikipedia, Sarasota Open (LPGA Tour), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarasota_Open_(LPGA_Tour) (1955-56 at Bobby Jones; winners).

16. PGA Tour, Johnny Revolta career, https://www.pgatour.com/player/18006/Johnny-Revolta/career (1935 Sarasota Open win).

17. Jason Bruno, Links Nation, Sara Bay Country Club feature, https://linksnation.com/?p=8994 (Whitfield Estates; 1940-41 Senior PGA shared with Bobby Jones).