“Let me tell you about the very rich,” says F. Scott Fitzgerald’s narrator in a famous short story. “They are different from you and me.”
For starters, they have a lot more money. They also tend to play a lot more golf course. Nowadays, this seems especially true.
If you keep up with golf titles, you’ve noticed the trend. Every turn of the news cycle seems to bring word of another exclusive enclave in development, targeting a small membership with staggering invitation rates.
Clearly, there is a market for such projects.
There is also a place in golf publications for stories about them, providing an unsparing look at courses that most golfers will never see in person. But there comes a point when the audience gets tired of hearing about the unattainable and starts thinking: How about some coverage of a course where anyone can, you know, take a moment?
Maybe that explains ours most read travel story of the year 2025.
The article traces the unlikely arc of Dunedin Golf Club, a Donald Ross design on Florida’s Gulf Coast north of Tampa, born in the boom years of the 1920s, humbled by the Depression and reborn as a municipal course long before the “muni” became a badge of honor. Along the way, she served as PGA of America headquarters, hosted 18 senior PGA championships and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places, even as it strayed from its Gilded Age roots.
You can probably see where this is going. Earlier this year, a $6 million restoration of Dunedin was completed. Overseen by Ross expert Kris Spence, the work peeled back layers to reveal Ross’ original green, direction and strategic intent, returning the course to its century-old self. With its revival, Dunedin joined a short list of rejuvenated Florida munis that includes Winter Park in Orlando and The Park in West Palm Beach.
That’s more like her, our audience seemed to say. If the story resonated with them, maybe green fees too. They start at under $100.
