- December 4, 2025
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When the city of Sarasota contracted with Indigo Sports to operate its newly restored Bobby Jones Golf Club, the company was tasked with three challenging directives: make it high quality, make it accessible especially to city residents and, ideally, make money.
All three don’t often find synergy — particularly among public golf clubs and especially municipal courses — but in the 18 months since reopening as the original Donald Ross layout it is receiving largely favorable reviews for course quality and value and offers a 40% discount off greens fees to city residents.
And to the pleasant surprise of many, it is earning enough revenue not only to make the payments on the city’s $20 million bond, to which it will transfer $1.1 million in fiscal year 2026, but has also carry a $1.65 million fund balance, all according to the city’s proposed fiscal 2026 budget.
The bond provided capital to restore the Ross course, rebuild the nine-hole Gillespie course and create the adjoining nature park,
“I was optimistic that this would work,” said Sarasota Parks and Recreation Director Jerry Fogle, “but it has far exceeded my expectations. It has been just an overwhelming success when it comes to the revenues. Not only have they made the revenues to pay the bills, but they actually are able to pay the bond payment, which is unbelievable,”
While Bobby Jones is arguably the only championship 18-hole golf course 100% accessible to the public, there are some options within or near the city limits.
Those include The Palms Golf Club at Forest Lakes on South Beneva Road, an executive course of 4,545 yards in length, and the semi-private Stoneybrook Golf and Country Club in Palmer Ranch. Both courses offer daily public play as well as memberships. For a more casual experience, located across 15th Street East from Sarasota-Bradenton International Airport is Suncoast Golf Center & Academy, with nine synthetic greens that play as 18 holes with two flag locations on each. The facility includes a driving range with available Top Tracer bays.
Two Sarasota County public courses east of Interstate 75 are Bent Tree Country Club and Tatum Ridge Golf Links, which are similar in size at just over 6,500 yards, both are par 72s and in price at $40 during the week and $45 on weekends.
More than a city asset, Bobby Jones has been a regional draw. Even with the steep discount to city residents — and no matter what players pay they also receive lunch and a sleeve of balls and/or other value-added enhancements — some 88% of the club’s 50,000 rounds so far this fiscal year on the Ross course come from outside the city limits.
General Manager John Sparrow said golfers regularly travel from St. Petersburg to the north and Venice to the south to experience a Donald Ross original, slightly lengthened and enhanced for drainage by golf course architect Richard Mandell of Pinehurst, North Carolina.
“What better golf course that you can have than an original 1927 Donald Ross paired with the name of Bobby Jones?” Sparrow said.
The course was named in honor of legendary golfer Jones, who played an exhibition round there on Feb. 13, 1927.
Like many industries, Bobby Jones employs a dynamic pricing system for its greens fees, the rate based on the volume of website and app traffic at the time of booking. Walk-ups will pay the target rate, which fluctuates by season.
A scan of tee times and fees for a mid-summer Thursday, one day in advance, revealed rates of $64.99 starting at 7:15 a.m. dropping to $55.90 at 2:03 p.m. where it remained throughout the afternoon. Saturday tee times and fees started at 7:15 a.m. for $74.99, increasing to $84 at 2:03 p.m. where they remained throughout the afternoon. Sparrow said greens fees during season last year were typically around $99 for a round on the Ross course.
Those are the rates for non-city of Sarasota residents. Players who live in the city and book tee times at a 40% discount, which means in high season they can play Bobby Jones for about $60, including lunch and a sleeve of balls and, depending on the day, $10 off the next round.
The price to play the 9-hole par-3 Gillespie course across Circus Boulevard is a steady $25 throughout the day.
Similar to Ross’ signature masterpiece — Pinehurst No. 2 — free to the public is an expansive 25-acre practice facility designed by architect Mandell. It includes a 10,000-square-foot putting green and three chipping greens. For the price of however many range balls they wish to purchase, the 200-yard-wide tee area always offers grass. There are no mats at Bobby Jones.
The practice area, at least two local golfers say, is second to none — country club or public course — in the area.
“I work on the sales rep and I travel all the Florida for work, and I would have to say they have one of the best practice facilities not only for a public course, but for a lot of private courses as well,” said Bo Jaffe, a non-resident Bobby Jones regular who lives near the course. "To have that size driving range it's always on grass, being able to move it 200 yards left or right. And 50 to 60 yards deep, you're always hitting off nice grass. Having those practice greens to be able to chip on and the big putting green, it's kind of unheard of.”
Brad Knight, the reigning Sarasota City Championship winner, had been a member at a few local private clubs before Bobby Jones reopened. Once he experienced the course and practice facility, he gave up is most recent membership.
“It's amazing what they've done. The practice facility, the driving range, the entire course, it's amazing,” Knight said. “I don't think anybody expected it to be this good. The practice facility; I've been a member at three different clubs and I would put up Bobby Jones' practice facility against theirs.”
More than a golf course, the city’s Bobby Jones complex projected included a 90-acre nature park, much of which was reclaimed from land occupied by 18 of the former 36-hole property. The course and the nature park work in harmony to capture, naturally filter and dispel stormwater that enters from the north and exits to the south into a Phillippi Creek tributary.
Prior to closing in 2020, the course flooded regularly, sometimes leaving it unplayable for days at a time. The restoration design directs water into dry ponds via swales and subterranean drains where it is held before gradually moving downstream. That keeps the course open to golfers after storms.
“I think the nature trail is huge,” Jaffe said. “ I've walked it a few times, and a lot of times I will be hitting balls at the range in the early evening after work and my fiancé will bring the dog and she'll go walk the trail.”
“It's public, so anybody can go out there and just practice, and there is so many different types of players and different types of people,” added Knight. “There are kids, there is the nature walk, and people walk in their dogs and I love it. I'm out there almost every day after work.”
For now, “every day after work” means accessibility to the practice area for several hours. Come fall and winter, that window of opportunity ends much earlier.
The practice facility is open until dark, and golfers regularly have to be chased away after sunset, according to Sparrow. There is some discussion about adding lights to the practice area, which would mean more public access, more revenue from selling buckets of balls and, eventually, perhaps more business for the restaurant in the proposed permanent clubhouse.
For now, though, Bobby Jones operates out of a conjoined triplex of temporary trailers, and Sparrow said, quite effectively at that.
"We sell a lot of merchandise out of this little pro shop," he said.
The staff — which includes more than 80 from the general manager, head professional and chief agronomist to the cart attendants and grounds crew — is receiving high marks from regulars.
“Everyone knows your name or it doesn’t take long for everyone to ask,” Jaffe said. “It just has that feeling of being at a private course. When you walk up and the cart guys know your name and are willing to do whatever it takes, whether I'm just going there to practice or whatever it may be, all things like that are important make you want to come back.”
Added Fogle, “I get all kinds of compliments about the customer service, about the quality of the course and the accessibility of the course.”
