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FORE!By: Leonard ShapiroGame On, Everyone |
With so many gated communities and their exclusively private or semi-private golf venues stretching from Marco Island all the way up to Fort Myers, it’s the closest thing the Naples area has to the traditional municipal golf course, and never mind the fancy name. The 18-hole course at the Naples Beach Hotel & Golf Club is an everyman’s (and every woman’s) golfing paradise, accessible to its guests and the general public virtually every day since the place first opened in the late 1920s.
With a pristine natural setting, all manner of feathered friends flapping their wings overhead or gliding on its well-placed ponds, the 6,448-yard championship layout has always attracted a diverse clientele, from the children of families in the surrounding neighborhood to the likes of actress Hedy Lamarr, who often took lessons from the resident club professional back in the 1950s. Hall of Fame golfer Gene Sarazen happened to be playing with head pro Paul Bell in 1963 when Bell set the course record of nine-under par 63. And did we mention that Jack Nicklaus broke 40 for nine holes for the first time in his life on this very same storied venue not long after his 10th birthday?
You won’t find any fancy faux waterfalls, spewing fountains in the water or gimmicky railroad ties shoring up island greens at Naples’ oldest, and perhaps most cherished golf course. It’s your basic, old-style Florida venue, initially commissioned by St. Louis native Allen Joslin, married at the time to the heiress of the Jurgens hand lotion fortune. Local lore has it that the great golf architect Donald Ross, credited with designing the Fort Myers Country Club, may have had a hand in shaping the Naples Beach course, as well, though no one really knows for certain who actually drew up the original plan.
"We think what occurred was that when Joslin came down here from St. Louis, he brought along the course superintendent and the golf pro from his own club," says Jim Gunderson, general manager of the Naples Beach Hotel & Golf Club (NBHGC). "They pretty much did it all, from what we’ve been able to determine. We’ve been using Ron Garl (a nationally known modern era golf architect) for the last 25 years. He understands us and he understands our golf course. The goal is not to do anything to change the basic nature of the place. People who play here wouldn’t stand for it."
Before Joslin’s course was built, the only golf played in Naples was on a nine-hole city course, complete with sand greens, which also doubled as the town’s first airport. Two of the fairways ran right where Third Street and Fifth Avenue in downtown Naples are now situated, obviously prime real estate that went the way of all pavement once the new course opened for business.
These days, NBHGC also serves as the popular venue for a wide variety of events, including the International Junior Golf Classic, the Florida Senior Women’s Golf Association Championship and the Florida State Senior Open, as well as a number of charitable tournaments and corporate outings. The daily rates ($55 to $75) are more than reasonable, particularly compared to so many $100-plus greens fees all around, and junior golfers also get even more of a break in price: $25 a day for all the golf they can handle on their summer breaks from school.
"There really are no other public golf courses around here," Gunderson says. "Just about all the courses are affiliated with real estate properties or resorts. Typically, the real estate courses want to create some buzz, so they let the public play until the real estate is sold and then they close the doors. We’re the opposite. All our facilities are open to the public, and we have a very, very close tie with the community."
That philosophy also apparently extends to the newest head golf professional, George Willard, a Naples native who first played the course in 1973. The occasion was Senior Skip Day at Naples High School, when seniors were allowed to blow off classes for a day and use all of the 125-acre resort’s facilities—the beach, the pool, the golf course—for free.
Willard’s family became members at NBHGC in 1975, and he won the Naples city amateur tournament on the course in 1977. After college, he went into the local commercial real estate business, but in 1998, at the age of 42, decided he wanted to change careers and his way of life.
"The light bulb went on in my head," he says. "Why not get back into the golf business?"
Entry level for Willard was a job in the resort’s golf cart barn, cleaning clubs and maintaining the carts while also starting the process of becoming a certified professional instructor. This past summer, he was named as the course’s new head golf professional.
"It’s a dream job at a place I’ve loved my whole life," Willard says. "There’s a real mystique to this place. And I don’t think that will ever change."
