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Celebrating 75 years of memories

Many golf greats have graced the greens at Dunedin Country Club.

By BOB HARIG, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times
published May 2, 2002

DUNEDIN -- The hustle and bustle of Alt. 19 is on one side of the golf course, a Publix shopping center off Curlew Road on another. Dozens of businesses, hundreds of homes are within sight.

It is quite a different view from the one Donald Ross must have had in the 1920s when he came to the sleepy community of Dunedin to lay out a course.

Now celebrating its 75th anniversary, Dunedin Country Club has seen the PGA of America come and go, the PGA Seniors' Championship grace its course and a who's who of golf greats traverse its 18 holes. On Saturday, the club has its annual City Invitational Pro-Am tournament.

But through it all, the original layout remains basically the same, even if Ross might not recognize it.

"I don't think he would, because of the trees," said Don Goodall, a 20-year Dunedin member who is the club's historian. "Ross didn't believe in trees. He thought they were too much of a penalty. And he was from Scotland, of course, where there were no trees.

"He believed in penalizing players by putting in bunkers and difficult greens. But over the years, trees were added and bunkers removed. So it might look different to him. But he'd recognize the routing."

Goodall knows this because he came upon Ross' original design while doing research for the club.

A prolific course designer whose most famous work is probably Pinehurst No. 2 in North Carolina, Ross did numerous courses in Florida, several locally, including Belleair Country Club, Belleview Biltmore and Palma Ceia. Ross, who died in 1948, was contracted to lay out the Dunedin course with the idea of attracting winter visitors and future retirees.

He began work in the spring of 1926, and, according to the Dunedin Historical Society, it took 226 men, 68 horses and mules, 13 scrapers, five trucks, 16 wagons and carts, a grader, roller and other equipment to finish in time for the club's opening Jan. 1, 1927. Dunedin had 1,000 residents at the time.

But it wasn't until the PGA of America decided to make Dunedin its National Golf Club in the 1940s that the course took off. That recognition brought many of the big names in golf to the area, including Byron Nelson, Sam Snead, Ben Hogan and Jug McSpaden, who staged a benefit match for PGA veterans of World War II. Bobby Jones played at Dunedin, while Arnold Palmer, Gary Player and Jack Nicklaus visited during their early playing days.

"For a while, this little old town of Dunedin was the golfing capitol of the United States," Goodall said.

Bill Hook is one of many PGA pros who took advantage of the arrangement. The head pro at Kenwood Country Club in Cincinnati, Hook, 82, started coming to Dunedin in 1946.

"Our club was closed for the months of January and February," he said. "That's how I got started coming down here. We'd come down here for two months, my kids went to school here. I'd have to be back by March 15. The first time I played this course was 1946. You're talking about a little more than 50 years, and I've seen a lot of changes. Most of them improvements. The golf course is still very good."

Everett Stuart, 84, remembers the exact date he arrived in Dunedin. "I came down here on Nov. 8, 1946," he said.

Stuart was an assistant club pro in Massachusetts at the time and ventured south to Dunedin where he could play the course all winter for $25. He recalled $1 dinners at Morrisson's, where "there'd be 20 pros sitting around those benches telling lies."

Eventually, Stuart became the head pro at Northland Country Club in Duluth, Minn., where he stayed for 34 years. But he never stopped coming to Dunedin in the winter.

"This was the national PGA headquarters," he said. "This was where all our winter tournaments started. This was the place for a golf pro to get away from the winter, get an education, play his own golf course and pick up a lot of information about the golf business. Then the Merchandise Show was right here, and you could see what was going to happen in the merchandise business."

Though Stuart was paid a year-round salary and made revenue from his pro shop, driving range and carts, his club was closed for five months. Hence the ability to come to Dunedin, where he has lived full time for 14 years.

"This is a golf course you never get sick of playing," said Stuart, who still plays three days a week. "The club I was at in Duluth is a Donald Ross course. I like them. The way they were built, the layout, the smaller greens. You had to hit a golf shot. And they haven't changed it very much over the years."

A highlight of those early years was the annual PGA Seniors' Championship. Started by Jones at Augusta National in the late 1930s, the tournament moved to Dunedin in 1946. Gene Sarazen won twice in the 1950s.

Over the years, however, the city of Dunedin and the PGA did not always have the same goals. Though the PGA touted the destination as a place for pros, the city often became frustrated at the lack of local use of the course. The PGA even moved its national headquarters to Dunedin in 1956.

But within a few years, the PGA outgrew the area. Another 18-hole course was needed, along with more space for teaching. The PGA eventually left, moving to Florida's east coast in 1962. Now the PGA of America is based in Palm Beach Gardens, with a sprawling complex.

Dunedin Country Club became a semi-private course, with memberships available and tee times set aside for Dunedin residents who were not members. By the late 1980s, 75,000 rounds were being played annually at Dunedin. In the late 1990s, a new clubhouse was constructed and the City Commission extended the club's lease of the golf course through 2022.

Today, Dunedin fights competition from nearby courses, which makes for a buyer's market. There is no longer a waiting list for memberships.

But Dunedin Country Club always will have history on its side.

"We have people who don't understand they have a jewel of a course," Goodall said. "Others do understand the importance of having a Ross course. You have to be real lover of golf and a student of the game to really appreciate what we have here."

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