Bradenton Country Club

Bradenton Country Club was founded in 1924 as Palma Sola Country Club. On February 25 of that year Rhonda Allen of Pennsylvania sold a large tract to A.F. Wyman and E.P. Green, who formed the Palma Sola Investment Company "to improve land, buy, sell or lease. To plat, layout and construct golf courses, drains, etc." The club's history records that Donald Ross declared the land ideal for golf and was hired to design the course. On October 31, 1927 the club's acting president took over the clubhouse and its operation, and an application for a charter was filed to change the name to Bradenton Country Club, following the city's own change of name from Bradentown.

Ross's plans survive. The club publishes 36 sheets on his printed "Donald J. Ross, Golf Architect" forms, the first headed "Bradentown Palma Sola C.C.": for each of the 18 holes, a hole plan on a 600-yard grid with tees, bunkers and fairway outline, and a separate green plan with handwritten construction notes and cross-sections. The sheets are specific enough to show how the course was meant to be built, from tee sizes ("Tee 50'x30' raised 6 inches") to bunker depths. No later Ross involvement is recorded. The next documented changes came in the 1960s.

Holes to Know

The card is par 71, 35 out and 36 in, at 6,661 yards from the 67 tees. It has four par 3s (the 2nd, 6th, 16th and 18th) and three par 5s (the 8th, 15th and 17th). The back nine opens with five straight par 4s and closes by alternating par 5 and par 3, ending on the 216-yard 18th, the longest one-shotter on the course.

The 430-yard 5th from the 67 tees is the longest par 4 and stroke index 1. It bends gently left with a lake along the left edge of the fairway from about 180 to 45 yards short of the green, and a second pond that starts on the right about 70 yards out and wraps around the right side and back of the green. Two bunkers guard the front corners of the green.

The 379-yard 10th, stroke index 2, runs out to the right and turns left about 270 yards from the tee. A pond sits left of the line in the landing area, and a narrow ditch runs from it diagonally across the fairway about 75 yards short of the green, which has a bunker at each front corner.

The 380-yard 11th also turns left. A ditch crosses the fairway about 240 yards short of the green, a sandy waste strip with palms runs inside the turn, and four bunkers surround the green, more than at any other green we could map: one about 30 yards short, two at the front corners and a small one on the left.

The 170-yard 16th is the shortest par 3 and a carry over a lake, with open water from about 165 to 60 yards short of the green, a second pond off its right side and bunkers to the right and behind on the left.

Ross's Design Here

Ross's sheets are the best record of what he intended at Bradenton. They call for every tee and green to be planted with Bermuda grass ("All the greens to be planted with Bermuda grass"), and they return again and again to wire grass: bunkers were to be dug "as far as drainage will permit", with finished faces about 4 feet deep "planted with bunches of wire grass" or "with tufts of wire grass", and rough mounds were to be planted the same way. That native planting is what Tony Jacklin pointed to in 2018 when he described "creating native areas with wispy grasses like Ross had written on the original drawings."

Drainage on the flat Gulf Coast site shaped the plan. On the sheet for his 4th hole Ross drew a ditch across the fairway "not less than 4' wide", near side sloped and far side raised, and the sheets for his 5th, 6th and 16th tell the builders to treat the ditch there the same way. Ditches still cross several fairways today, including the 10th and 11th, but the sources do not connect any of them to Ross's.

The greens were to be built up from flat ground with deliberate contour. One was to be raised 3 feet "leaving a flat top 60' wide in the form of an inverted saucer", its sides falling "with a long easy grade" and its front approach "flat & open". Others call for plateaus 1 to 1.5 feet above the body of the green, grass mounds 4 to 6 feet high beside the putting surface, "a terraced green" raised 3 and 4 feet, and a green "built in form of a slight valley". Several notes insist that mounds and plateaus "blend into putting surface without any sharp ridges."

Historical Significance

In November 1944 citizens raised $35,000 to buy the course and recondition the clubhouse, the city agreed to keep maintaining the course through the war years "for the benefit of tourists and resident golfers", and a tournament on November 26 marked the purchase. The club marked its centennial in 2024.

Bradenton has become a regular championship venue. The club lists the Florida State Golf Association's 2013 Boys Junior, 2017 Senior Amateur, 2019 Women's Senior Amateur, 2020 Girls Junior, 2021 Men's Four-Ball, 2022 Florida Open (the 76th) and 2023 Mid-Amateur, along with the 2022 Florida Hickory Open and U.S. Four-Ball qualifying in 2022 and 2023. The LPGA Tour came in consecutive winters: Nelly Korda won the Drive On Championship (January 25-28, 2024) in a playoff, and Yealimi Noh won the Founders Cup (February 6-9, 2025) by four strokes at 21 under. The Bradenton Herald's People's Choice Awards named it the best private course in Manatee County in 2015.

Changes Since Ross

The routing on the ground no longer follows Ross's numbering. His sheets give lengths of 410, 433, 140, 460, 385, 396, 333, 425 and 221 yards going out and 401, 179, 350, 403, 411, a short hole, 449, 420 and 396 coming in, with one-shotters at his 3rd, 9th, 11th and 15th. Today's par 3s are the 2nd, 6th, 16th and 18th, and the card adds three par 5s. The sources do not say when the sequence changed.

The club's timeline records that the front and back nines were "completely renovated" in 1965-67, without naming an architect. In 1996-99 the course was renovated again, with new irrigation designed by Ron Garl, work the club elsewhere calls a 1999 restoration.

The largest modern project came in 2018. Over seven months and $2.5 million, overseen by Jacklin, the club replaced every green with TifEagle bermudagrass and TifGrand collars, redrained the bunkers and refilled them with new sand, stripped and sprigged the fairways and roughs with Celebration bermudagrass, rebuilt the tees and range, and added six large waste areas "to re-capture the original Donald Ross design." Asphalt cart paths came out and the paths went back to the crushed limestone the club calls the original design, and deciduous trees were replaced with local palms. The course reopened on October 26, 2018.

A further restoration is in planning. In May 2026 the Donald Ross Society reported that the club is working with architect Brandon Johnson on a restoration "bringing it back to Ross's original vision while enhancing it for today's game", with his recommendations expected later in 2026.

Uncertainties

• Ross's presence on site: the club says he declared the land ideal for golf and was hired in 1924, and the sheets refer to raising ground "above present level", but no source read documents a visit or gives the date the course opened for play. The listing keeps 1924 as the founding and design year.

• The 1965-67 renovation has no named architect, and no source says whether it changed the hole sequence shown on Ross's sheets.

• Length: our card gives 6,661 yards (67 tees, 73.0/133); the club's course page gives 6,708 (72.7/130). The listing uses our card.

Sources & Notes

1. Bradenton Country Club, Club History, https://www.bradentoncc.org/about/history (1924 land sale, company purpose, Ross hired, 1927 name change, 1944 purchase, 1965-67, 1996-99 and 2018 work, LPGA dates)

2. Bradenton Country Club, Donald Ross's original drawings, 36-page PDF, https://www.bradentoncc.org/images/downloads/original-ross-drawings.pdf (hole and green plans, construction notes, hole lengths)

3. Bradenton Country Club, Our Club, https://www.bradentoncc.org/about/club (championships hosted, membership cap, no interior roads or homes, Garl 1999)

4. Bradenton Country Club, The Golf Course, https://www.bradentoncc.org/amenities/golf (6,708 yards, 72.7/130, TifEagle, Stimpmeter 11, range, walking)

5. Bradenton Country Club, LPGA Event Info, https://www.bradentoncc.org/about/lpga (2024 and 2025 LPGA events)

6. Donald Ross Society, Featured Club: Bradenton CC, with Tony Jacklin's note, https://rosssociety.org/Bradenton-CC (2018 intent, wispy-grass quote, palms)

7. Donald Ross Society, Bradenton Country Club restoring 102-year-old Donald Ross design (May 1, 2026, from Golf Course Industry), https://rosssociety.org/Donald-Ross-In-The-News/13631455 (Brandon Johnson restoration)

8. Joe Barks, Club + Resort Business, Donald Ross Signature Course at Bradenton (Fla.) CC Reopens (2018), https://clubandresortbusiness.com/donald-ross-signature-course-at-bradenton-fla-cc-reopens/ ($2.5 million, seven months, grasses, waste areas, reopening date)

9. Wikipedia, LPGA Drive On Championship, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LPGA_Drive_On_Championship (2024 winner and playoff)

10. Wikipedia, LPGA Founders Cup, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LPGA_Founders_Cup (2025 winner and score)

11. Top100GolfCourses, Bradenton Country Club, https://www.top100golfcourses.com/golf-course/bradenton-country-club (1924 opening as Palma Sola, Garl 1999, centennial 2024, homes around the course)

12. Greens Visited scorecard and course-tour aerials (USDA NAIP imagery via USGS The National Map, https://www.usgs.gov/programs/national-geospatial-program/national-map) for hole yardages, card shape and what is on the ground today.