Current boom mimics that of years ago
MIKE HENRY
Herald Staff Writer
No other section of the state is enjoying more prosperity at the present time than the west coast of Florida. No portion of America's last frontier offers a more golden opportunity for sound real estate investment for men of vision and the courage to back it with action. The pioneer may reap real reward.
It sounds like an invitation to buy property at The Concession Golf Club or The Founders Club before the area's dwindling wilderness vanishes for good.
But the come-on actually is a portion of a 1925 sales brochure produced by the Adair Realty and Trust Company of Atlanta. Its purpose: to lure wealthy speculators to purchase a residence at Whitfield Estates Country Club in Sarasota, one of the state's first real-estate developments tied in with a golf course.
Florida's 1920s real-estate boom - which coincided with the Golden Age of Sports, when Babe Ruth, Red Grange and Bobby Jones reigned supreme - attracted developers like buzzards drawn to roadkill.
Perry Adair was among those to take the plunge. Jones' boyhood friend, who had wearied of trying to beat Bobby on the course, hired leading architect Donald Ross to design a golf course and named Tommy Armour of Scotland head golf professional.
Jones - already with U.S. Open and U.S. Amateur titles to his credit - was brought in as sales manager, spending afternoons employing his considerable charm to persuade Northerners to buy lots.
The Ross-designed Whitfield Estates Country Club - preserved to the present day as Sara Bay Country Club - opened Jan. 22, 1926. Jones and Armour christened the course by defeating Johnny Farrell and Jim Barnes in a better-ball match.
Fans from Bradenton, Tampa and St. Petersburg were delivered to the course on special buses provided by the Whitfield Estates Company.
"Property was being sold and resold, and the prices just kept going up, up, up," said current Sara Bay club manager Gavin Darbyshire, the club's resident historian. "Back then the land along the coast near downtown Sarasota was wide open.
"It was an opportunity to develop on the land and build a great golf course. I think the club members are real fortunate to have a Donald Ross design that hasn't been altered a lot through the last 80 years."
On Florida's western coast, Whitfield Estates is located in a region unexcelled in richness and stability. Facing Sarasota Bay, called the most beautiful body of water in the world, its great desirability is enhanced by the fertility of its back country - an area which grows in abundance the choicest fruits and vegetables which the American market procures. - from Adair Realty and Trust Co. sales brochure
Ross, whose designs have withstood the test of time, had been active in Florida and the Manatee-Sarasota area before mapping out Whitfield Estates Country Club. A year earlier, he declared land west of downtown Bradenton ideal for the purpose of playing golf.
The end result was Palma Sola Golf Club, which is still going strong as Bradenton Country Club. "No city amounts to anything these days unless it has a golf course," wrote the Evening Herald when the course opened.
Other well-known Ross courses built in Florida during the period include Seminole Golf Club in North Palm Beach; Palma Ceia in Tampa; Belleair Country Club; and the Bobby Jones Municipal Course in Sarasota.
Ross and the Adair Realty and Trust Co. weren't alone in their desire to profit from the Florida land rush. In February 1925, the long-defunct Palmetto Golf and Country Club opened north of Palmetto, bisected by the Atlantic Coast Line railroad.
But in early 1926, with Jones lending his name and vibrant personality to its debut, Whitfield Estates Country Club was the epicenter of the American golf universe. When Jones agreed to a challenge match against top professional Walter Hagen, a crowd of more than 1,000 spectators attended the first round, paying $3.30 for the privilege.
Over the course of two Sundays - the second 36 holes were played on Hagen's Pasadena home layout in south St. Petersburg - Hagen dusted Jones, 12 and 11.
The lopsided result portended the short-term future of Whitfield Estates. Victimized by overbuilding, inflation, a cold winter that kept vacationers away and the effects of a devastating hurricane in south Florida, the land boom collapsed, causing Whitfield Estates to cease operating in 1927.
For his part, Jones was never comfortable selling real estate. In "The Grand Slam - Bobby Jones, America and the Story of Golf" - author Mark Frost recounts part of a later conversation between Jones and sports writer Paul Gallico.
Jones "became convinced he and his golfing titles and prowess were being employed merely as a front to dispense wastelands," Gallico said.
Gallico's words don't mesh with Jones' writings in his own 1927 book, "Down The Fairway." Taken from an article that appeared in Liberty Magazine, Jones wrote: "I regard the Whitfield Estates course as one of the best in America."
Darbyshire said, "Jones spent a lot of time here, and his parents purchased the first lot that was sold in Whitfield Estates development. The street he grew up on in Atlanta was named Willow Street, which is the name of the street our clubhouse is located on.
"I don't know if Bobby Jones was ever a salesman-type of person. He's a fellow who had an engineering degree from Georgia Tech and got a law degree. . . . Perry Adair was his boyhood friend, and (the Adair company) was instrumental in backing Jones in major international amateur events.
"Jones signed on to help out the family that had helped him a lot and to have a really nice course to play in the winter," Darbyshire said.
However lukewarm, Jones' desire to sell real estate vanished soon after his match against Hagen. At 24 - a full four years before his unprecedented Grand Slam - Jones won his first British Open and second U.S. Open title and led the United States to a Walker Cup triumph at St. Andrews.
Whitfield Estates was revived in 1937, operating for a time as Sarasota Bay CC. In the early 1990s, architect Brian Silva restored Sara Bay to its original character, a fitting testament to the lasting appeal of Ross.
The area's current course explosion was replicated in the late 1980s and early 1990s, with construction along the Interstate 75 corridor of University Park, Rosedale, The River Club and Tara.
But the legends of Donald Ross and Bobby Jones and the bold vision of developers such as the Adair Realty and Trust Co. proves not much is new under the Florida sun.
Information from linksmagazine.com was used in this report.
