Brentwood Golf Club

Jacksonville’s pursuit of a municipal course dated to the 1910s, when city leaders even invited A. W. Tillinghast to review candidate sites without result. In 1921 a civic “Citizens Golf Committee” urged the City Commission to engage Donald Ross to study locations for a city-owned links. Early in 1922 the city bought 146 acres in Moncrief Heights for $61,158 and formally hired Ross; municipal crews under Commissioner M. B. Herlong then carried out construction “to the letter” of Ross’s plans, using city engineering resources. The 18-hole Brentwood Municipal Golf Course opened in 1923 and quickly became a popular public venue.

Ross’s original layout established a full championship-length course across the 146-acre tract. Surviving historic artifacts include a 1923 scorecard and a period drawing noting a proposed nine-hole addition by Charles Mayo (a professional golfer and sometime architect who worked in the era), indicating early demand that outstripped capacity. While primary plan sheets from the Ross office have not been reproduced publicly, the Florida Historic Golf Trail (FHGT) provides period imagery—opening-day photographs, a 1943 aerial, and the 1923 card—that corroborate a functioning 18-hole course during the interwar years.

Brentwood rapidly entered the competitive calendar. The PGA Tour’s Jacksonville Open was staged at Brentwood in 1945 and 1946, with Sam Snead winning both editions; later in the decade and through the 1950s, Brentwood also participated in Jacksonville’s LPGA schedule, hosting the opening event of 1952 (won by Louise Suggs) and again in 1953 (won by Patty Berg). These events attest to the course’s stature as the city’s first municipal and a layout capable of handling professional competition.

The mid-century also framed Brentwood within the realities of segregated municipal recreation. The city allotted “Black golfers Mondays at Brentwood and Fridays at Hyde Park,” a policy that drew a lawsuit when players were denied the ability to complete a rain-delayed round on a Tuesday—an episode recorded in FHGT’s curated chronology. The case forms part of Brentwood’s civic history and the complicated social context surrounding municipal golf in Jacksonville.

Municipal priorities and budgets shifted in the 1970s. The city closed Brentwood in 1975, later selling a portion of the site to the Duval County School Board. Decades on, the School Board donated remaining undeveloped acreage to First Tee of Jacksonville (now First Tee – North Florida), which led the renovation of an abandoned nine, added a range and learning center, and re-introduced community golf on part of the original ground. The modern Brentwood reopened as a nine-hole course and program hub in the early 2000s.

Unique Design Characteristics

Only one hole is confidently identifiable as a near-continuous survivor of Ross’s routing: the present sixth, which was originally the twelfth and measured 419 yards in 1923. FHGT notes that today’s No. 6 plays 373 yards from the Gold tees and is rated the most difficult hole, preserving the original line of play and intent even as yardage and surrounding treatments have evolved. Its endurance offers a tangible link to the 1923 ground plan and a reference point for how Ross arranged his corridors on a relatively flat, sand-based Jacksonville site.

Elsewhere the course reads as a modernized nine assembled from fragments of the former 18, with contemporary greens, bunkers, and tees scaled for teaching and junior golf. The current scorecard shows a par-34 distribution—five par-4s (four of them under 340 yards), a single par-5 (No. 3), and three par-3s—that encourages precision over power. Although the greens and hazards are not documented as original Ross constructions, the compactness of certain driving zones and the diagonal angles into several putting surfaces still promote thinking about preferred lines into hole locations—an echo of the strategic questions that would have animated the 1923 course.

Historical Significance

Brentwood matters in Ross’s corpus for three reasons tied directly to this site. First, it was Jacksonville’s first municipal course and one of Florida’s early municipal adoptions of a nationally prominent designer, illustrating how Ross’s work intersected with civic recreation outside private-club contexts. Second, Brentwood hosted elite competition on both men’s and women’s professional tours: the PGA Tour’s Jacksonville Open in 1945–46 (both won by Sam Snead) and the LPGA’s Jacksonville Ladies Open in 1952–53 (Louise Suggs and Patty Berg). Third, its social history—documented segregation of play days and subsequent legal challenge—locates the course within the broader narrative of access and public space in mid-century Southern cities. Together these threads make Brentwood a rare municipal chapter in the Florida portion of Ross’s career, even if much of the physical fabric has been altered or lost.

Current Condition / Integrity

Integrity at Brentwood is mixed. The site itself remains part of the 146-acre municipal ground purchased in 1922, but only one hole (current No. 6/old No. 12) is identified as following Ross’s original alignment with reasonable confidence. The closure in 1975, subsequent sale of a portion for a skills center, and decades of abandonment severed continuity with many original features. The early-2000s revival by First Tee remade the course as a nine-hole, instruction-forward facility with new practice amenities, ensuring ongoing golf use and community benefit but not attempting a Ross restoration. Without access to Ross’s plan sheets (held, if extant, at the Tufts Archives in Pinehurst) or detailed city engineering drawings from 1922–23, it is not possible from public sources to quantify surviving green contours, bunker forms, or tee placements beyond the sixth hole’s routing continuity.

What has been preserved is the municipal setting, the educational mission, and selective corridor geometry—chiefly at No. 6—that conveys the challenge of a longer two-shotter on flat ground. What has been lost or radically changed likely includes most original greens and bunkers, fairway widths, and the overall rhythm of an 18-hole Ross routing; the present loop’s yardages and par arrangement are tuned to beginners and juniors, with three par-3s inside 150 yards at the back markers. From a conservation standpoint, Brentwood’s current use maintains the recreational function of the land and the memory of the 1923 municipal project, while the Florida Historic Golf Trail designation in 2025 has sparked renewed interest in documenting and interpreting the site’s Ross origins for the public.

Sources & Notes

Florida Historic Golf Trail, “Brentwood Golf Course” (history, images, segregation case note, 1922 land purchase, Ross engagement, 1923 opening, 1943 aerial; present-day nine-hole configuration; identification of current No. 6 as original No. 12 with 1923 yardage).

Brentwood Golf Course (official site), “The Course / Our Scorecard” (current par, yardages by tee; club narrative noting 1945–46 Jacksonville Open at Brentwood).

Florida Times-Union / Jacksonville.com, “Brentwood Golf Course joins facilities on Florida Historic Golf Trail” (Aug. 22, 2025) (1923 opening; status as Jacksonville’s first municipal; closure 1975; reopening c.2000; addition to FHGT). Wikipedia (curated) & mirror summary, “Jacksonville Ladies Open” (venue listings: 1952–53 at Brentwood Municipal; winners Louise Suggs and Patty Berg). Cross-checked with tournament compendia. Where2Golf & KronishSports 1952 LPGA recap (calendar noting Jacksonville Ladies Open at Brentwood in January 1952; winner Louise Suggs).

Brentwood Golf Course (main site) (address, public status, First Tee affiliation; practice-oriented positioning).

JAGA (Jacksonville Area Golf Association) history page (context on city-owned courses Brentwood and Hyde Park in local golf culture).