Info
Key West Golf Club
Public - 18 Holes
6450 East College Road
Key West, Florida
Monroe County
33040
Website
Logo
Award for Best Picture
KeyWestGolf.com (the 16th hole)
Notes
The visionaries of the Key West Golf and Country Club were The Key West Chamber of Commerce, 1923.
Over its history, there have been 3 unique course layouts:
1924 to 1966: Key West Golf and Country Club - 9 holes, par 35, 3160 yds and was designed by Langford & Moreau.
In 1966, an additional 9 holes were added and were designed by Mark Mahannah.
1966 to 1982: Key West Country Club - 18 holes, par 70, 6111 yds (estimated).
In 1983 the course was totally redesigned by Rees Jones and Keith Evans.
Since 1983: Key West Golf Club - 18 holes, par 70, 6531 yds.
The Key West Golf Club is the southernmost golf course in the continental United States and calls itself the only Caribbean course in the US.
Course Area
The homes within the golf course boundary are part of 2 gated communities - The Key West Golf Club and The Santuary.
Course Layout
Scorecard
Street View of Entrance
Google Maps
Bing Maps
History
In April 1923, a contract was drawn up for plans for a 18-hole golf course on Stock Island between the Key West Chamber of Commerce and Langford & Moreau, golf architects, of Chicago. A bond election held on May 10, 1923 passed and $150,000 was raised to purchase the lands and construct the course. On land described as ‘flatter than a pancake,’ Langford and Moreau designed a spectacular layout which included an island green and a tee out in the Gulf of Mexico. The course was to be 18 holes, par 71, 6305 yards. The plans were ready by the bond election and are shown below.
http://i1211.photobucket.com/albums/cc435/snilsen7/KeyWest_zps27d4b5c1.png~original
Work began immediately after the bond election, with the intention of having the course ready for 1923-24 winter season. William B. 'Billy' Langford and Theodore J. Moreau supervised the construction and ran into difficulties in building the course. First, they had to use dynamite to blast away at the island's coral rock formation. Secondly, 30% of the island was under water at high tide. Therefore the 1st 9 holes were constructed on land out of the water. To build the other 9 holes would require bulkheads and fill at an additional cost of $210,000.
Work progressed on the course, and when 6 holes were completed in early 1924, it was opened to the public for free until the other 3 holes were built by the summer of 1924. The clubhouse was constructed on the gulf side of the island. It was decided that the other 9 holes would be built at a later time.
The following aerial snippet from 1941 shows the 9-hole golf course:
When I compare this 1941 aerial to the Langford & Moreau plan of 1923 (shown above), it matches up exceedingly well for the planned holes 1 through 9. As a result, using the 1923 plan, the 9-hole course would have had a layout and scorecard like this:
In 1928, the Miami News referred to the course as the Key West Golf and Country Club.
Key West was once the richest city in the United States in terms of per capita income but on July 1, 1934, the city declared bankruptcy and State of Florida ran the city.
Times were tough for Key West until later in the year when the Federal Government under the New Deal's Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA) created by the newly elected President Franklin D. Roosevelt pumped money into Key West. Julius Stone, Jr., the administrator for FERA for Key West, decided that since Key West had lost most of its industries to other cities, that the best course of action would be to create Key West into a tourist mecca.
On September 2, 1935 the category 5 Labor Day Hurricane hit Key West with 185 mph winds. At the time, it was the strongest hurricane ever to hit the US. Henry Flagler's Florida East Railroad was the only link to the mainland, but it was destroyed in several sections, and as a result the railroad line in the Keys was never rebuilt.
As part of his FERA plan for Key West, Stone decided to rebuild the golf course and $18,722 were allocated to recondition the municipal golf course. The following picture entitled "Municipal golf course built by the FERA - Key West, Florida" from 1935, shows 6 ladies watching a golfer on the rebuilt golf course.
After the railroad's demise, Key West was linked to mainland again by the opening the famed Overseas Highway in 1938. By January, 1939, the golf course had been practically rebuilt including all the greens.
In 1947, badly needed repairs to the greens were approved by the City of Key West.
In 1948, Key West Golf Club signed a 20 year land lease with the City of Key West for their new clubhouse.
President Truman would golf here in the late 40's and early 50's but made his 1952 trip his last excursion to Key West to golf since the course was no longer good enough for him.
The City of Key West approved plans for an addition of 9 holes to the municipal golf course in July, 1956.
By 1960, the members of the Key West Golf Club were fed up with the condition of the golf course and demanded that the city bring the course up to a full 18 holes and that the old 9 holes be plowed up and replanted. The course, at this time, had only light grass topping covering the crushed coral rock base called marl. It was planned that the rebuilding process was to take about 30 months and was to be completed in the summer of 1962.
In April 1961, Sam Golan who headed the Key West Golf Club hired Mark Mahannah as the architect to bring the course up to 18 holes. At this time, the Key West Golf Club is reported to be a private club.
Since topsoil was very expensive to import into Key West, 'Keys peat moss', a rich fertile black soil found underneath the roots of abundant and nearby mangrove swamps was to be used in place of traditional topsoil.
However, the city had to sue the contractor for breach of contract thus delaying the opening of the additional 9 holes.
In May, 1964, the new Key West Country Club was deciding between 2 possible building sites for its new clubhouse.
Images from 1965 show that most of the new 9 holes were still not completed but I will assume that construction was complete by 1966.
Pasting together 2 aerial pictures from Florida Memory from the 1970s, here is what the 18-hole golf course looked like in its completed form:
When this image is compared to the 1923 plan, the additional 9 holes built did not follow the 1923 plan. It is obvious that Mark Mahannah retained the first 9 holes layout and yardages but left his mark by designing new layouts and yardages for the additional 9 holes.
It is a shame that hole 10 from 1923 plan was never built. Hole 10 was planned as a 340 yard par 4 with an island green.
Since the clubhouse was moved to the middle of the property, I assume the order of the front 9 changed with hole 9 becoming hole 1 and hole 1 becoming hole 2 and so forth.
Working off an 1970 aerial, here is an estimated scorecard and layout for the expanded Key West Golf Course.
A postcard from Florida Memory by photographer Avery Johnson:
In 1976, the City of Key West took over the Key West Golf Course.
In 1983, Rees Jones and Keith Evans did a new design of the course. When this new design is compared to the 1966 plan, not one hole from the 1966 plan was kept. The first 9 holes opened in April, 1983 and the second 9 holes opened in December, 1983. The new course was 6,531 yards long from the back tees and played to a par 70. It contained 51 bunkers. This was Rees Jones first design with his own firm. Most of the materials to build the course were shipped by barge from Homestead.
On October 24, 2005, Hurricane Wilma generated an eight-foot storm surge that flooded the Key West Golf Club with four feet of salt water and inundated the irrigation ponds with ocean water, leaving no source for fresh water. The course opened the next day, but a major course rebuild was required. Renovations on the front 9 holes began in June 2006 with new drainage, land raising, re-grassing greens and fairways amongst the repairs. The back 9 holes were reseeded in June 2007. The course reopened on October 1, 2007.
