Building Courses On Florida State Parks? Let’s Kill This Bad Idea For Good

I grew up in South Florida, playing junior golf throughout the region.

Most of the courses I played as a child no longer exist. I can name at least a dozen that were developed into condos or other residential developments. Golf in the state of Florida—which leads the country with more than 1,200 courses—was hit hard in the 2000s and 2010s as an oversupply of facilities matched unfavorably with tepid demand prior to the pandemic.

We’ve seen a comeback from the golf industry since then and Florida has been a leader. From 2019 through 2023, no state produced more course openings (21). Only Texas (13) reached double digits in that time.

While those new courses such as The Park West Palm and Sandhill Crane’s The Nest Par 3 have been widely supported—they offered much-needed affordable public golf in an area that skews heavily toward private golf—the latest proposal for public golf has been met with near-unanimous outcry.

Last week, the State of Florida announced a proposal to build multiple golf courses on state parks, potentially threatening cherished land that hosts some of the most spectacular wildlife in the country. The Florida Department of Environmental Protection’s “Great Outdoors Initiative” for 2024-2025 also includes the development of pickleball courts, 350-room hotels and disc golf courses across parts of nine state parks.

Protests ensued, including hundreds of people gathering at state parks this past Tuesday.

There is still a lot of unrest and confusion over where the plan stands. The proposal initially featured the construction of three public golf courses on Jonathan Dickinson State Park near Jupiter. However, the builder—mysterious non-profit Tuskegee Dunes which promised to funnel proceeds to the Folds of Honor organization that supports military veterans—decided to withdraw after the overwhelming backlash.

And on Wednesday, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said the FDEP would be “going back to the drawing board” on the entire project with nothing imminent.

Golf course construction could still be on the table but we won’t know more in the short term. The FDEP previously announced that public hearings initially slated for this week have been delayed.

This isn’t the first time Florida has attempted to build golf courses on state park land. In 2011, legislators tried to add courses to state parks through bills that would have created the “Jack Nicklaus Golf Trail of Florida.” Jonathan Dickinson State Park was also included in that proposal.

The bills were quickly withdrawn after a similar public reaction.

As a golfer, I’m gravely disappointed and saddened that anyone is trying to build golf courses on protected land. Forget politics or anything else besides just being a human—all golfers should be against this type of course construction.

It’s a positive that more courses are starting to be built. Last year saw more course openings than any of the previous 13 years. That is great for the game.

But it’s even more important that the golf industry acts in environmentally responsible ways. More than 40 percent of all golf courses in the world are in the United States—that is a lot of land. How it is maintained makes a significant difference.

There is a misperception out there that golf courses are unnecessary and harmful for the environment. When a story like this pops up, it perpetuates the stereotype that golf course development is all about money instead of reasonable efforts to be a good neighbor in the community.

The reality is that the USGA Green Section is hard at work identifying ways to be more efficient with resources like water and fertilizer. Golf and nature are meant to coexist and golf—contrary to popular belief—has a lot more power to benefit the environment than one might assume. Academic studies have shown that storm water falling on a golf course with wetlands leaves cleaner than when it entered. And the greenery, contours and edges around a golf course regularly bring wildlife back to thriving levels in areas where it once suffered.

With a state park like Jonathan Dickinson, however, more than 600 acres of carefully protected land would be replaced with a golf course. For as helpful as some golf courses can be in protecting wildlife, any type of development in this situation could negatively affect animals such as the rare Florida scrub jay.

The park is the southernmost natural habitat for the threatened scrub jay with an estimated 130 of the birds living there.

“If we continue to chop these parcels into smaller pieces like was done farther south, the bird’s local extinction is almost inevitable,” said Jim Howe of Audubon Florida.

The bird has already lost its natural habitat in Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade counties. Development around the state park has caused the population to decline by 90 percent since 1990. The bird doesn’t migrate so Jonathan Dickinson is a critical area for its survival.

The overall Florida scrub jay habitat is the most endangered type of habitat in the state with only 10 to15 percent of the original environment remaining.

Negatively affecting that habitat is a steep price to pay for three public courses.

As one petition states: “There are already at least 47 golf courses between Stuart and Jupiter. That is FORTY-SEVEN golf courses in a 20-mile radius; we do not need to destroy a beloved state park to add any more.”

All of that is to say this: There is a line to draw when it comes to building golf courses.

Every course being built must move dirt, requires certain use of chemicals and a need for ample water during a time when some parts of the country are in a water crisis. The maintenance standards are far safer than they used to be just 15 or 20 years ago but golf courses aren’t perfect in their preservation of the environment. You still have to develop the land and that comes with consequences when you’re doing it in delicate ecosystems.

It’s a weird position to be in but golfers need to take a stand against building golf courses—if the result is more detrimental than the positive gains.

In this situation, that is clearly the case.

Top Photo Caption: Golf course development on Florida State parks could be harmful to animal habitats. (GETTY IMAGES/James Gilbert)

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