Category Archives: Aqua Greens

By Dave Allen Earlier this year, Bonita National Golf & Country Club hired some temp laborers to retrieve as many floating golf balls as they could find along the banks of their aqua range—nearly one mile of shoreline (4,740 feet). They removed roughly 45,000 floater balls. “That’s a lot of golf balls,” says Simon Coulls, […]

By Dave Allen JP Shepherd picked one heck of a time to start his new job as Head Golf Professional at Bonita National Golf & Country Club. One month after leaving Alabama for Southwest Florida, Hurricane Ian came ashore just northwest of Bonita Springs, pounding the club with sustained winds of 150-plus miles per hour […]

By Dave Allen Like most new residential communities, The Cottages at Cypress Cay has a swimming pool, gym, 24-hour clubhouse and dog park. But what clearly separates this resort-style apartment community in Lutz, Fla., from others is what’s floating in the pond by their amenity center—two floating “chipping” greens. And as this video details, the […]

By Dave Allen According to statistics from the National Golf Foundation (NGF), there were more off-course golf participants (32.6 million) than on-course partakers (28.1 million) in the United States in 2024. This continued a post-Covid shift toward more off-course golf activities, with indoor golf simulator and virtual driving ranges and entertainment venues such as Topgolf […]

By Dave Allen (Photographs courtesy of Lakefront at Keystone) There have been a lot of changes to our way of life since the arrival of Covid-19 in early 2020, and nowhere has that been more evident than in the American workplace. Four years later, more Americans are working from home than ever before (22 million […]

By Dave Allen Birch Hill Country Club is nestled between the scenic Ossipee Mountain range and Lake Winnipesaukee in Moultonborough, New Hampshire. Formerly known as Ridgewood Country Club, Birch Hill was bought in February 2024 by a young professional tax attorney who had been a member for the past 15 years. Shortly after closing, the […]

By Dave Allen (Photos courtesy of Perspectrum Studios) In 2020, a new era was ushered in at Nemacolin resort with the transformation of its logo and mascot from Fat Bird to Pearl. The slimmed-down bird in high heels was named in honor of the resort’s CEO and owner, Maggie Hardy, who was nicknamed Pearl as […]

By Dave Allen Aqua Greens owner Matthew Gault walks you through the process of refurbishing the aqua range at Celebration Golf Club in Celebration, Fla., just outside of Orlando. Originally built in 2008, the range had gone through four major hurricanes and multiple other powerful storms, damaging several of the floating green structures. Aqua Greens […]

By Dave Allen On September 28th of last year, Hurricane Ian made landfall just northwest of Sanibel Island and Fort Myers Beach, Fla., as a high-end Category 4 storm, packing winds up to 160 miles per hour. Within 48 hours, Aqua Greens’ owner Matt Gault’s cell phone was ringing constantly. Gault didn’t need to see […]

By Dave Allen A few years ago, David Reasoner and his wife, Kerry, were driving around the Hudson Valley region in New York, looking for the perfect wedding venue that would one day serve as their full-time summer home. The long-time PGA Head Professional at The Ridgewood Country Club in Paramus, N.J., Reasoner has dabbled […]

By Dave Allen They say “everything’s bigger in Texas.” So, when The Club at Carlton Woods in The Woodlands, Texas, was announced as the new home of the Chevron Championship—the LPGA Tour’s first major of the year—a search immediately began to find something very large and unique to commemorate the tournament’s move to Southeast Texas. […]