Nearly a century ago, when the ‘20s were still roaring and no one thought a crash was just around the corner, Donald Ross completed work on a course then known as Dunedin Isles Golf Club, an 18-hole design on Florida’s Gulf Coast.
Situated in the city of Dunedin (pronounced dun-EE-din), just north of Tampa, the layout, which opened in 1927, sat on land that Ross regarded as ideal for the game: gently rolling and graced with natural hazards. Waterways running through it rose and fell with the tide. Ross sought to do the backdrop justice. His routing featured fairways that bent and buckled in strategic fashion. The greens, in keeping with their author’s reputation, made beguiling targets, with subtle humps and hollows and testy runoffs spilling here and there. In the style and variety of the challenge, which encouraged shot-shaping and bump-and-runs, Ross had brought a slice of his native Scotland to the Sunshine State.
He was gratified enough with the results to call the course a “masterpiece,” high praise from a man who had amassed a pretty good portfolio.
Then the economy caved in. The Depression did to Dunedin Isle GC what it did to countless projects. The club changed ownership more than once, until 1939, when the city of Dunedin acquired it. Just like that, Ross’s masterpiece became a muni.
And its story was just kicking into gear.
In 1944, with the war winding down and golf regaining steam, the PGA of America relocated its headquarters from Chicago to Florida, and chose Dunedin as its home base. The organization stuck around until 1962. During its stay, Dunedin Isles GC was renamed PGA National Golf Club. Under the banner, it would go on to host 18 consecutive Senior PGA Championships as well as the inaugural PGA Merchandise Show. If you’re keeping score at home, it’s worth noting that a gathering now held in a cavernous convention center started in a golf course parking lot.
As for the course itself, nothing ever stays the same.
As years passed, Dunedin’s great muni bore less and less resemblance to what Ross had created. The usual suspects — time, deferred maintenance, old-fashioned wear and tear — were partly to blame. But so were a handful of renovations that pulled the property away from its Golden Age roots.
By then, the course had been rebranded Dunedin Golf Club — a simple name that underscored its connection to the city — and many locals recognized its worth. In 2014, it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places. A decade after that, a $6 million restoration got underway.
The project started a year ago in March and wrapped up in December. Within nine months, features dulled for generations sprang back to life.
It helped that the bones of the layout were intact. Buried under layers of organic buildup, the greens, in all their lovely shape and contour, remained pretty much as Ross had built them. Kris Spence, the Ross expert who oversaw the restoration, likened the project to an excavation: archaeology applied to the ancient game.
The putting surfaces Spence uncovered have the same contours and elevation shifts that they presented golfers in the 1920s. They are, Spence says, “as good as any out there with great variety.” The routing, meanwhile remains unchanged, though some bunkers have been moved to account for modern-day equipment; a Ross-ian test, updated for the post-titanium age.
In its return to glory, Dunedin has joined a short list of the finest municipal courses in Florida, alongside Winter Park in Orlando and The Park at West Palm Beach. Call it throwback golf, at time-capsule prices. Rates for 18 holes range from $85 to $130.
