Club's golf course reopens after restoration

SARASOTA — Private member-owned golf club Sara Bay Country Club has reopened for play after an extensive restoration of its 1926 Donald Ross-designed championship golf course.

According to a press release, golf course architect Kris Spence of Spence Golf Inc. lead the project. The project focused on restoring the greens and bunkers using original Donald Ross drawings, creating a variety of surface contours that allow for multiple hole locations on the new greens and creating fairway bunkers prominent to the golfer's eye.

"The newly restored and widely diverse green complexes will be some of, if not the most authentic Ross greens in Florida," says Spence in the statement. "It was my goal to show a great deal of respect to Ross's design work and creativity at Sara Bay by restoring his legacy to the property."

The club hosted the Senior PGA Championship in the 1940s, the LPGA Tour in the 1950s, FSGA Men's and Women's Championships, the 100th Women's Southern Amateur and most recently, the LPGA Symetra Tour.

Sara Bay Country Club, north of downtown Sarasota, was founded in 1926.