Scotland may be the birthplace of golf, but Florida is its hub. The Sunshine State boasts 1,281 golf courses, according to a 2020 count by the National Golf Foundation, spreading from Key West to Jacksonville and across to Pensacola. Even if you took out the 54 golf courses in The Villages, No. 2 California still trails by more than 150.
Whether a high-priced round at TPC Sawgrass, home of the PGA Tour’s richest event, or a historic property like The Breakers, or a quick nine in Florida’s Friendliest Hometown, a typical year finds more than 48 million rounds teed up in Florida. “Florida is always going to be the capital of golf,” said Joie Chitwood III, who oversees the Arnold Palmer Invitational, a PGA Tour mainstay for 44 years in Orlando.
“Yes, there are other great states, but look at the volume of activity; look at the golf properties here. There’s so many great ones in Orlando or Tampa or South Florida. I’m not sure you can say the word ‘Florida’ without golf coming to mind.”
And all those properties create the setting for the most fertile competitive landscape in the game.
No state plays host to more top-tier professional events, with the PGA Tour blocking off four consecutive weeks for its renowned “Florida Swing.” That stretch includes The Players Championship near Jacksonville, which paid $3.6 million to winner Cameron Smith two weekends ago.
The LPGA goes one better with five events — bookending its schedule to start and conclude with multiple stops in the Sunshine State. Toss in both tours’ top developmental circuits and the PGA Tour Champions, and 17 tour-level events come through Florida in 2022.
Perhaps that shouldn’t be any surprise. Both tours have their headquarters in Florida, as does the PGA of America that puts on the PGA Championship, Women’s PGA Championship, a senior version and the Ryder Cup.
“We have the ability to have so many events to showcase the best and inspire those who want to become professionals,” said Andre Silva, The Players Championship’s tournament director.
Plenty of professionals, too, find inspiration by being in Florida. Jupiter and Orlando have become hotspots in a Sunshine State migration with roots going all the way back to the days of Walter Hagen and Gene Sarazen. Arnold Palmer made Orlando his winter home; Annika Sorenstam arrived fulltime a generation later. Jack Nicklaus set up shop in North Palm Beach. Today’s roster is headed by such standouts as Rory McIlroy, Brooks Koepka, Dustin Johnson, Justin Thomas, Billy Horschel, Tyrrell Hatton and LPGA homegrowns Nelly Korda and Lexi Thompson — all in the shadow of one Tiger Woods.
“Sometimes I just sit back and watch them hit balls and ask questions,” said Lydia Ko, currently No. 3 in the women’s world rankings and a member of Orlando’s Lake Nona Golf & Country Club alongside Sorenstam, Hatton and major championship winners Henrik Stenson and Graeme McDowell.
It’s no less robust for amateur and junior golf in Florida. Top women amateurs make the trek to Florida each January for the Orange Blossom Circuit that has seen winners from Babe Didrikson to Korda. Last year’s Walker Cup, matching top U.S. amateurs against foes from Great Britain & Ireland, was contested at Jupiter’s Seminole Golf Club.
The American Junior Golf Association, considered the nation’s top junior circuit, holds its season-ending Tournament of Champions at PGA National Resort & Spa in Palm Beach Gardens. Myriad other junior tours pass through Florida or play their entire schedules in the state.
Elite juniors, too, sometimes relocate to Florida.
“You know the weather is going to be good,” said Chris Tremblay, director of golf operations at the International Junior Golf Academy, headquartered less than an hour from The Villages. “We’re not far from Orlando and Disney. We’ve got our own campus. And we’re associated with one of the top prep schools in the country.”
In Bradenton, IMG Academy has developed such talent as Korda, her sister Jessica, 2010 U.S. Women’s Open champion Paula Creamer and former U.S. Amateur winner Peter Uihlein.
“Florida has always been such a strong hub,” said Aaron Stewart, son of the late Hall of Famer Payne Stewart who grew up in Orlando and now runs the LPGA’s season-opening Tournament of Champions celebrity pro-am at Lake Nona.
Golf in Florida dates to the 1880s, when Scottish immigrant J. Hamilton “John” Gillespie had two holes built on his homestead in Sarasota.
Gillespie also did some magazine writing on the sport, which attracted the attention of hotelier Henry Plant, who hired Gillespie in 1897 to build six holes at the Tampa Bay Hotel. Eventually, four other Plant hotels also advertised golf.
On the other coast, railroad magnate Henry Flagler also took note of the growing game and commissioned courses for the tourism he was bringing to South Florida. The Breakers in Palm Beach, opened in 1901, today is Florida’s longest continually operating course.
As other developers joined in, Florida surpassed 200 golf courses by 1930. Though the Great Depression and World War II were about to take a bite out of the industry, the concept was firmly rooted.
As early as the 1920s, noted pros from northern clubs began to take winter jobs in Florida. Perhaps the most notable was Hagen, lured to the St. Petersburg area by the “sunshine, beautiful scenery, people with time on their hands for fun, and of course money.”
Sarazen, Johnny Farrell, Jim Barnes and others made Miami their winter base. Florida made a keen impression on Sarazen, who crossed the state to build a home in New Port Richey and eventually retired to Marco Island. The Florida Open began in 1921 and was won by Barnes, who five years earlier had captured the inaugural PGA Championship. The Miami Open and Miami Four-Ball both launched in 1924, the Miami Beach Open in 1927, the Pensacola Invitational in 1929.
Sarazen’s four consecutive Miami Open victories from 1926-30 shares a PGA Tour record, equaled four other times. After Sarazen, no one matched the feat until Woods claimed four straight Bay Hill Invitationals from 2000-03.
For perhaps a half-century starting in the 1960s, Florida’s best known stop was Doral Golf Resort & Spa on Miami’s west side, where the “Blue Monster” layout and its signature watery 18th taunted tour pros. Doral’s rise no doubt got a boost from Jackie Gleason, a constant presence with his variety show originating in Miami Beach. The entertainer later put his name on a second South Florida stop — the Jackie Gleason Inverrary Classic, now the Honda Classic.
“When I grew up, you’d look at people like Bing Crosby and Bob Hope and Jackie Gleason,” said Bud Beucher, president/general manager of Mission Inn Resort & Club in Lake County. “All the Rat Pack guys. Golf was a sport that people aspired to be able to play.”
Bay Hill joined the lineup in 1979, when Palmer took over the former Florida Citrus Open. And though The Players dates back to 1974, it didn’t have a home until TPC Sawgrass opened in 1982.
From 415 acres of swampland purchased for $1, PGA Tour Commissioner Deane Beman tabbed Pete Dye to carve out a course that would offer a complete test to golf’s best players. That includes the iconic 17th, where nothing but water separates the 135 or so yards between tee and green.
“It’s a very simple formula here: hit it good,” Woods once said.
The current Florida Swing begins in Palm Beach Gardens, where the Honda Classic has thrived since settling at PGA National 15 years ago.
Before that, the tournament had shuffled through four largely faceless host sites since leaving Inverrary Country Club, outside Fort Lauderdale, in the 1980s. But PGA National’s Champion course, with its “Bear Trap” gauntlet running through holes 15-17, sparked a revival in Palm Beach County.
“It didn’t attract non-golf fans,” executive director Ken Kennerly said. “So how do you become a community event? How do you embrace the community, and have the community embrace you? We’ve done it by creating a lot of fun and energy.”
In 2014, the PGA Tour honored the Honda Classic as its most fan-friendly event. Five years later, it won again. From there, the tour journeys north to the Palmer Invitational, where its namesake’s legacy is celebrated from every corner of Bay Hill Club & Lodge. That includes a Palmer-style cardigan sweater for the winner, a departure from the jackets offered by the Masters and other tour stops.
The API is one of just three “invitationals” on the PGA Tour schedule, which brings an enhanced purse ($12 million) and three years of full PGA Tour membership for the winner instead of the standard two. Then it’s on to The Players, the PGA Tour’s showcase event that typically draws each of the top 100 players in the world rankings. Total purse: $20 million.
The final stop is the Valspar Championship in Palm Harbor, near Tampa, a comparatively new event that launched in 2000 but routinely lures such draws as Johnson, Thomas and Bubba Watson to rolling, tree-lined Innisbrook Resort.
The LPGA starts its season at Lake Nona with the Hilton Grand Vacations Tournament of Champions, which mixes winners from the past two seasons with celebrities from sports and entertainment.
This year’s event included John Smoltz, Greg Maddux and Roger Clemens (baseball), Charles Woodson and Larry Fitzgerald (football), Vince Carter (basketball) and actors Alfonso Ribeiro and Larry the Cable Guy.
“When (fans) come out and see their heroes that played another sport out here playing golf, suddenly it’s not such a stuffy country club feel,” Stewart said.
From there, the women moved to the Gainbridge LPGA at Boca Rio (Boca Raton), followed by the LPGA Drive On Championship (Fort Myers). In November, the schedule loops back with the Pelican Women’s Championship (Belleair) and CME Group Tour Championship (Naples).
The PGA Tour Champions, for golfers 50 and older, stops three times in Florida. November’s Timbertech Championship in Boca Raton is part of the Charles Schwab Cup playoff series.
Florida also is a mainstay on the top developmental circuits. The Korn Ferry Tour (PGA Tour) plays a spring event in Lakewood Ranch, while the Epson Tour (LPGA) makes four stops — with Florida bookending the schedule like the big tour.
The women also visit Florida for back-to-back weeks in May. The IOA Golf Classic in Longwood is in its ninth season on the Epson schedule, and the Inova Mission Inn Championship just renewed its deal for three more years.
“Here it’s important to have tournaments that you can count on year in and year out,” said Mike Nichols, the Epson Tour’s chief business officer.
Uncounted are qualifiers for the U.S. Open and other U.S. Golf Association events, or qualifying tournaments to gain entry to lower-tier developmental tours.
Beucher, whose family has owned Mission Inn for 58 years, rattled off a list of more than a half-dozen competitions this spring that included PGA Tour Canada qualifying, the NCAA Division III championships, Florida’s high school championships and the Epson Tour.
“It’s a balance,” said Beucher, “but it’s a lot of fun.”
Not unlike Sarazen, professionals from generation to generation have decided the Sunshine State is the place to call home. One really can’t do better than this foursome of testimonials: Palmer, Nicklaus, Sorenstam and Woods.
“I’ve been here for 20 years,” said Sorenstam, “and I have access to everything that I possibly need.” Palmer first visited Orlando with his Wake Forest golf team, coming down to play Rollins College, and knew that someday he’d be back.
“I didn’t know to what extent I would be here, but I liked the small-town atmosphere, the orange groves, the pristine lakes and the surrounding areas,” Palmer said in his autobiography “A Life Well Played.”
The opportunity presented itself in 1965, visiting Bay Hill for an exhibition match that also included Nicklaus. He could barely contain his enthusiasm.
“I returned to the house we were renting in Coral Gables,” Palmer wrote, “and said to (wife) Winnie, ‘Babe, I’ve just played the best golf course in Florida and I want to own it.’”
It took until 1974 to hammer everything out, but Palmer got his wish.
“The biggest star in the game of golf at the moment was saying Orlando was important,” Chitwood said. “If there’s a better vote of confidence in this marketplace, I’m not sure what it would be.”
Likewise, Nicklaus found his haven at Lost Tree Club in North Palm Beach. Subsequent generations saw Greg Norman (Hobe Sound), Nick Faldo (Orlando), Nick Price (Hobe Sound) and Ernie Els (Orlando) joining the migration.
Fun fact: Since the world rankings began in 1986, 15 of the 24 golfers to ever hold the No. 1 spot have called Florida home. That ranges from Hall of Famers Bernhard Langer (Boca Raton) and Vijay Singh (Ponte Vedra Beach) to contemporaries Koepka, Johnson, Thomas and McIlroy.
And, needless to say, Woods.
In a way, Woods caused two booms. When he moved into Isleworth shortly after turning pro, it removed any last vestiges of Orlando being an under-the-radar golf hotspot.
Only Orlando in those days could have pulled off the Tavistock Cup, a made-for-TV crosstown showdown pitting Isleworth (Woods, Mark O’Meara, John Cook, Stuart Appleby) against Lake Nona (Els, Sorenstam, McDowell, Stenson, Ian Poulter, Justin Rose).
Then when Woods opted in 2011 to relocate to Jupiter Island, it sparked the next wave.
“In Orlando, there’s a bunch of lakes, but it’s not the ocean,” Woods said at the time. His $54 million compound sits on 12 oceanfront acres complete with tee boxes, bunkers and four greens of differing grasses. A handful of contemporary stars like Johnson, Rickie Fowler and Keegan Bradley were already there. Then came the flood — McIlroy, Thomas, Patrick Cantlay, Branden Grace, Shane Lowry, Aaron Wise, Joaquin Niemann. And the list goes on.
“You could see a shift,” said Stewart, who grew up at Isleworth. “Florida’s the choice, but where do I want to end up? Have you seen Tiger’s place down in Jupiter? And those guys are all very close with him.”
Not to leave out Koepka and Daniel Berger, who grew up in West Palm Beach and already knew what they had — great weather, top-notch clubs (Medalist, Bear’s Club, Old Palm, Jupiter Hills), a place to get away. Even if they don’t necessarily get away from each other. In all, more than 30 active members of the PGA Tour live in the Jupiter area.
“I’ll be in the back yard chipping, and Rickie will cruise by on a paddleboard,” Johnson told Golf Digest. “Or I’ll be in the boat and see JT or [tour veteran Steve] Marino messing around at their place. You just kind of wave and keep going.”
Said Fowler: “It’s definitely grown a lot in the last five or six years, but there’s still a local vibe. There’s not a lot of chain restaurants or anything like that. For the most part, being in Jupiter has kind of got that small town, golf/fish town vibe.”
Close to a good airport, too, which is huge for someone who spends half the year living out of a suitcase. Being on Eastern time also is an underrated benefit.
“I needed that convenience where I could go home and recharge my batteries, so I wasn’t always on the road,” said Sorenstam, a Sweden native who went to college in Arizona. “I could be one day home and get the mail. Even that was a help.”
Orlando still has its Lake Nona cluster, plus such veterans as Charles Howell. It’s also more prominent among LPGA pros, with sisters Ariya and Moriya Jutanugarn joining Ko at Lake Nona and several Korean pros living near Bay Hill and the Hyatt Regency Grand Cypress resort.
Nor are they the only options. Rising quickly is Ponte Vedra Beach, long home to Singh and former U.S. Open champion Jim Furyk but now infused by such younger pros as Horschel, Cameron Smith and Sam Ryder.
“South Florida never really interested me too much. Just too many people down there,” said Horschel, who grew up outside Melbourne. “Orlando is in the center of the state, but it’s too warm and too many people. (Ponte Vedra) is a little bigger than where I grew up, but still feels small.”
Bradenton/Sarasota also is attracting more attention, especially with the emergence of the Korda sisters. They grew up there, after their tennis pro dad chose the Gulf Coast as his U.S. base while on that circuit. Pick one, really. Or feel free to think outside the hubs. Louis Oosthuizen chose Ocala because it reminds him of his rural South Africa upbringing. Watson returned to his roots in the Panhandle. The LPGA’s Sophia Popov liked Naples, where her family often had vacationed.
Champions can spring from any of those map points. But they all point to one state.
“Florida is where you want to be based,” said Epson Tour veteran Shasta Averyhart, a Michigan native now in Sarasota. “It’s a golf mecca.”
Senior writer Jeff Shain can be reached at 352-753-1119, ext. 5283, or jeff.shain@thevillagesmedia.com.
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