Bobby jones golf course locations3/21/2023 In the exhibition match that followed, Jones paired with Sarasota Louis Lancaster, chairman of the golf committee and president of the West Coast Golf League. In this photo from the Ron Rowe collection, Jones is shaking hands with master of ceremonies Jules Brazil as the cut ribbon flutters to the ground. While official opening ceremonies were held in June 1926, with six civic organizations playing the opening tournament, the big event was the dedication nine months later by Bobby Jones. This 18-hole course was designed by Donald Ross, internationally known golf course architect. The city of Sarasota then sold some land previously designated for a park and used the income, plus revenue from a bond issue, to develop a new golf course east of the city. Charles Ringling purchased it for his Courthouse Subdivision in 1924. The first nine-hole course stretched eastward from the area now marked by the intersection of Golf and Links to the vicinity of the Ringling Shopping Center.Īs the demand for commercial and residential land increased during the 1920s Florida Land Boom, the golf course was seen to be prime development property. Scottish colonist Alex Browning recorded in his memoirs that Gillespie practiced almost daily on a small course he had made in a clearing in the woods. He had grown up in Scotland and was an ardent golfer. Gillespie had come to Sarasota in 1886 to help manage the Florida Mortgage and Investment Company's holdings in the new settlement. An earlier course had been laid out by John Hamilton Gillespie in 1904. The opening of the Bobby Jones Municipal Course marked a new era for golf in Sarasota. Bacon of Sarasota "paid homage to Bobby" during the presentation. When Jones became the first American amateur golfer to win the British Open, the newspaper claimed him "Sarasota's Own." As a winter resident of Sarasota, he "brought added honors to the city and to himself when he won the title." Community leaders presented Jones with a 1926 Pierce-Arrow sedan in a ceremony at McAnsh Park in July. In June 1926 the Sarasota Herald followed Jones' success in the British Amateur and British Open Tournaments. Well-publicized golf events on the Donald Ross-designed Whitfield Estates County Club course were part of the sales strategy for the real estate developer. The Whitfield developers, the George Adair family, hired Jones as Vice-President for sales and featured him in golf matches with well-known golfers such as Walter Hagen. A year and half earlier, Jones had come to Sarasota from Atlanta, Georgia, to help sell lots in Whitfield Estates. By the time Bobby Jones cut the ribbon dedicating Sarasota's new municipal golf course in 1927, he was already well known in the community.
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